A/N: Thanks for all the support so far guys! It really means a lot. Enjoy chapter 3! It's a personal favourite of mine…

It was night time and the streets were deserted but for a man huddled in a doorway a little way away. He had his coat collar up around his face, pressing himself as far into the wood of the door as it was possible to go without actually passing through it. The sky was a smoky-looking black with pale yellow stars dotted around it, as they would perhaps look in a child's painting. The planet's low-level atmosphere made everything above the level of the buildings look slightly hazy, and a mist hovered close to the ground.

It was cold. Rose shivered, looking up at the Doctor. He was staring at their new surroundings with a look of puzzlement and incredulity, shaking his head slowly. His palm felt slightly clammy against hers as he gripped her hand tightly. She could see a slight sheen of sweat on his face despite the chilly weather. 'Doctor,' she whispered.

He looked down at her. 'This is impossible,' he said abruptly, then fell silent again.

'Where are we?' she asked, knowing what his answer would be before she had even voiced the question.

'I don't know,' he replied.

'Are we on Earth?'

There was a pause before he answered. 'No.'

'So what planet are we on?'

He sighed, exasperated and perplexed. Nervousness and unfamiliarity made his hearts pound wildly in his chest. 'I don't know, Rose.'

'But how did this happen? How could it happen? Shouldn't it be impossible?' She was persistent, trying to disguise her fear by acting in control and addressing the questions that needed to be answered. It registered somewhere in her brain that asking a myriad of questions probably only made her seem even more scared than she looked anyway.

'I don't know,' the Doctor said again, gritting his teeth and his mouth set in a thin line. His mind was working at a million miles per second, and yet he was still coming up with nothing. Rose was right; this situation ought to be impossible.

'Is it to do with those things we saw earlier?'

'I don't know,' he replied, trying not to sound annoyed with her. He was annoyed, that much was true, but he wasn't annoyed with Rose and he knew he shouldn't take it out on her.

'Was it those blurry shapes and that crowd in the mirror? Something to do with that woman playing the cello?' She was sounding slightly hysterical now, the Doctor's hand clutched securely in both of hers. She pressed herself into the side of his body in an effort to draw some comfort.

He snapped, turning to face her and moving his hands to grasp her shoulders tightly. 'I don't know, Rose! I don't have any idea where we are or how we got here. I don't know how we get back- if we even can get back, that is. I don't know what's going on and, to be honest with you, I have absolutely no idea what we should do now, okay? So stop asking me questions you know I can't possibly know the answer to!'

He let her go as soon as he had grabbed her, whirling away from her and covering his face with his hands. He was breathing hard. Rose stared at his back, her arms hanging limply at her sides. She blinked, telling herself not to cry. She knew he didn't mean to shout at her, that he simply needed to release the tension and she'd been the most obvious outlet, but it still hurt. She frowned and squeezed her eyes shut. 'I'm sorry, Doctor,' she told him quietly. 'I didn't mean to… I'm sorry.'

The Doctor was silent for a few moments, and she could see his breath standing out against the frosty air of the night. She wrapped her arms around her middle in an attempt to warm herself up. The Doctor's shoulders shuddered in front of her, and he rubbed his hands roughly over his eyes before letting out a sound that was somewhere between an angry shout and a choked sob. He dropped his hands and spun back round to face her. His eyes were dazzling in contrast to the dark sky and weak starlight she could see behind him. 'No,' he said, and she was surprised to hear the gravely, raw sound in his voice. 'Don't apologise, Rose. You did nothing wrong.'

He crossed the short distance between them and gathered her up in his arms, holding onto her tightly as though she was his lifeline. 'I'm sorry,' he insisted, his mouth buried in her hair. 'I'm sorry, Rose. I shouldn't have shouted at you. None of this is your fault. I'm promise you; we're going to sort this out. It'll all be okay. Everything will be okay.' He sounded somewhat like he was trying to reassure himself of that fact just as much as he was her- if not more.

'I know,' she breathed out against his chest, the feel of his warm, solid body pressed against hers offering her some comfort as well as shelter from the cold. 'But what do we do now?'

He kept her held close against him as he looked around their surroundings once more. 'I guess…' he began. 'It doesn't seem like there's anyone around right now to help us, or to tell us where we are. So I guess we just… wait until it gets light and some people show up.'

'What about that man?' Rose asked, nodding towards the man huddled in the doorway.

The Doctor frowned. 'Where?'

She pointed. 'There.' Her voice was hesitant, and suddenly she was afraid that she was seeing things that weren't there again.

'Ah, yes! Well spotted,' he praised her. 'Well, then, let's go and meet the natives… hopefully. Perhaps. Maybe. God, I hope he doesn't kill us,' he muttered under his breath.

Rose shook her head and looked up at him. 'You're really filling me with confidence about this whole thing,' she told him sarcastically.

He grinned at her, leaving his arm around her shoulders as he steered her over to the man cautiously, making sure he walked slightly ahead of her- just in case, he told himself. He gripped the sonic screwdriver in his free hand as they neared the occupied doorway. 'Excuse me, sir,' he started in his politest "it's-very-nice-to-meet-you-and-I'm-a-nice-guy-but-if-you-don't-help-me-I-will-hurt-you" voice. There was no response from the man in the doorway. 'Excuse me? Sir?' he said, a little louder than before. Still no reply.

Rose sighed and shuffled as far forward as the Doctor's grip on her would let her go. One hand resting on her hip told her not to go any further. 'Hey, mate!' she said. 'You awake? We need some help.'

The man rolled over onto his back and looked up at them, a sleepy expression gracing his face for all of three seconds before his eyes widened in fright and he started breathing rapidly. 'No,' he said, his voice panicked. 'Please, I've never done this before! Please don't arrest me! Don't arrest me.'

'What?' the Doctor asked. 'We're not here to arrest you; we just want to ask you a few questions.'

'Oh God,' the man said. 'You're with them, aren't you? You're officials come to find out what I know. You think I'm involved with all those protests! I'm not, I swear to you, I'm not!'

'Mate, mate,' the Doctor said, raising his eyebrows at the man's jittery disposition. 'I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. We're not officials.'

'You're not?' He visibly calmed.

'No.'

The man pulled back in fright. 'Then what the hell are you doing out after curfew? You'll get yourselves arrested.' He cowered into the doorway, as if trying to hide himself from prying eyes.

'Hey, it's okay,' said Rose. 'Just tell us… Where are we?'

There was a long pause before the man spoke. 'What do you mean: where are we?'

The Doctor piped up, pulling Rose closer to him as he felt her shiver with cold. 'We mean just that,' he informed the man. 'First of all, we'd like to know what planet we're on, if you don't mind.'

The man frowned in shock. 'You serious?'

'Completely.'

'You get wasted in one of the bars or something?' The man shook his head. 'Never mind, we all get like that sometimes, I guess. This planet is Eustance. We're in the vicinity of Valtallahan, about two miles out from the power district of government and finance.' He lowered his voice. 'You wanna be careful around here, yeah? And you really don't wanna be caught out after curfew. I'm sure you've heard the rumours.'

The Doctor shook his head. 'What rumours? We're not from around here.'

The man's nervous twitching was back. 'I shouldn't say anything. I shouldn't even be talking to you.'

'What rumours?' The Doctor was persistent.

'Now is not the time,' the man said. 'Listen, you two need to get off the streets; it's not safe at this time of night. You never know who might be watching… Why did you even come here, anyway? Especially at this time of night!'

'Never mind that,' the Doctor brushed the question away. He fixed the little man with a stern glare.

'Well then,' the man said. 'If I were you, I'd get inside somewhere and hide out for the night, hope that you haven't been caught on any of the cameras. If I were you- and bear in mind I'm not, and I'm not really telling you this- I'd head down this road, keeping close to the wall so there's less chance you'll be seen by the guards. I'd walk for about ten minutes until you come to Ganjud's Bar- it'll be open- and tell Ganjud that Maurice told you about him. And then I wouldn't budge until the sun is up and the curfew is lifted. And even then I'd be careful.'

The Doctor smiled at Maurice appreciatively, nodding. 'So that's what you'd do if you were us.'

Maurice nodded. 'That's right. I'd get myself out of sight and keep a low profile.'

'Right then, thank you! Except you didn't just tell us that, did you?'

'No, I didn't,' Maurice said. 'Nice to know you catch on fast. In fact, you never even met me.'

'Nope,' said Rose, realisation dawning on her. 'We're just standing here talking to thin air.'

'That you are,' Maurice told her. He mock-saluted them before melting back into the doorway, pulling the door open a crack and slipping through the small opening. 'You're telling yourselves to watch out for the guards and to make sure you don't get mistaken for renegade protestors. You're telling yourselves to get out of this place as fast as you can- as though you were never even here.'

'Oh, believe me,' the Doctor said. 'That's exactly what we plan to do.'

The door clicked shut.

The Doctor turned to Rose, moving them so that they were as flush up against the wall as they could be and still walk side by side. He took off his coat and wrapped it around her snugly, looping his arm back around her shoulders as she smiled her thanks up at him. 'Right then,' he said, a small smile on his face. 'I have a feeling we should stay close to this wall. Walk up this road for about ten minutes until we come to a bar. Tell Ganjud that Maurice sent us, and then not move for a good long time. Sound like a plan?'

Rose smiled and nestled herself more closely into his body. 'Sounds like a plan to me.' Her smile dropped. 'I don't like this.'

He nodded sympathetically. 'I know. Me either,' he admitted quietly. 'We'll sort it.'

He waited until she nodded before they started walking, heads low in case of the cameras and guards Maurice had mentioned. The Doctor gripped both Rose and the sonic screwdriver as tightly as he could, both of them lending him some comfort. 'Let's go see if there's any room at the inn.'

A year after Damien first meets Airlia, the atmosphere becomes very tense around Valtallahan. There is lots of civil unrest, mass protests outside the planetary government buildings and talk of martial law if the situation does not calm itself fast enough.

He hardly sees Airlia for three months; she is staying away from him to protect him, but it still hurts that she won't let him help her when she's in trouble. The local government has many emergency meetings about what to do, before deciding that the curfew should be introduced an hour earlier each night and putting the military on permanent red alert.

The media and the public call for an election, the government calls for patience and obedience. Global Opposition parties start making a noise about the government's abysmal civil rights record and the fact that state executions have more than trebled in the eighteen months they have been in power, despite their election promise to act more humanely in issues of justice.

Three weeks later, the leaders of the Opposition parties disappear never to be seen again. The global government dissolves the charter of the United Federated States and withdraws Eustance's delegates to the Interplanetary Alliance, their actions gaining much rebuke across the whole star system. Outspoken officials on other planets are mysteriously found dead. The fear of Eustance's government grows.

The situation gets so bad that nobody dares to complain six months later when the government abolishes the democratic system and declares their regime supreme above all others, and nobody is surprised when the army begin to guard every street corner outside of the curfew hours.

Airlia comes to Damien's apartment in tears on the day the news is announced. He hasn't seen her in weeks. They sit together on his sofa and listen to the President's address as he tells his people that on this planet, he is on a level with God. Airlia sobs in distress, and Damien feels himself growing angry with her even though he knows it isn't her fault.

'Stop crying,' he tells her harshly.

'I can't.' Her voice is shaky with tears and apprehension. 'I can't believe this is happening. It isn't supposed to be like this.'

Damien stands and looks down at her. 'Then do something about it.'

She shakes her head. 'I can't.'

'Airlia,' he says, exasperated. 'The man announcing to the world that we are at his mercy is your father. Can't you make him change his mind?'

She stands to face him, anger flashing over her lovely face. 'Do you think I haven't tried?' she cries. 'Because of course I've tried! I don't want it to be like this; I disagree with what he's doing just as much as you do.' She slumps, her shoulders sagging, deflated.

Damien sighs. 'I know you do.'

She starts crying again. 'And I don't know what to do. I feel… guilty.'

'Don't. It isn't your fault.'

He takes her in his arms and holds her close to him, his own tears leaking from his eyes as she shakes against his chest. He squeezes his eyes shut, as if that can block out the knowledge of what is happening to his planet as he stands safe in his living room. It isn't as bad anywhere else as it is in Valtallahan, he knows, and this lends him some comfort. The thought of the whole planet living every day in fear for their lives sickens him. The rumours of kidnap and torture within the vicinity are rife at the moment, and the very idea of it makes him feel sick. Nobody who dares to protest against the government of Airlia's father is safe. You could be putting your life on the line just by being caught out fifteen minutes after curfew.

This is the day Damien realises that something needs to change, and that he needs to take Airlia away from this place. For good.

'Here you go folks,' the man called Ganjud said as he showed the Doctor and Rose into one of his bar's guest rooms. 'This should do you for the night. Bathroom's through that door in the corner and the heating can be controlled with this switch here.' He touched a switch on the wall next to the door to demonstrate.

'Thank you,' said the Doctor. He took off his jacket and chucked it on the bed.

'No trouble.' Ganjud bustled past them into the room and crossed to the window to close the curtains. The room was plunged into darkness for a few moments before he fumbled his way across to the lights. 'If you don't mind me asking folks, what were you doing to end up showing up here so late? When guests show up after curfew, a guy has to figure something's going on.'

Rose sat on the bed, swinging her legs over the side. 'If we tell you that are you going to arrest us and hand us over to the guards?' she asked teasingly.

'Oh yes,' he replied mock seriously. Ganjud laughed. 'Nah, none of that round here, sweetness. Especially not if you've already spoken to Maurice; he's a good mate of mine, stands up for what things used to be like before they all changed.'

'What were things like before it all changed?' Rose said.

Ganjud studied her before replying, 'Better.' He looked wistful for a moment before his cheeky grin broke out once more. 'So how'd the two of you end up here then? You decide to elope and somehow ended up on this godforsaken rock?'

'Something like that,' said the Doctor. 'We're not entirely sure. But we're definitely not from around here.'

'Yeah, I can tell that all right,' Ganjud told him. 'You don't look scared like everyone else. Well, at least not for the same reasons.'

There was a heavy pause before Rose asked, 'Is everyone human around here?'

'Most,' Ganjud replied. 'There's a few variations here and there, a few exotic genes creeping in every now and then, but Eustance is being widely claimed as the greatest human civilisation since the race began on Earth.' He regained his earlier nostalgic look. 'I'd love to go there one day.'

The Doctor frowned at Rose when she looked as though she might respond to Ganjud's comment. Don't give too much away, his look said to her. The lower their profile stayed, the better, especially as they weren't planning on staying around for too long. 'I don't suppose I could be a pain and ask you what year this is, could I?' the Doctor asked, biting his lip in a way that usually made people answer whatever questions he might have.

'Sure,' Ganjud looked slightly amused. 'It's the year nine hundred and eighty three.'

'So on Earth, that would make it…' The Doctor trailed off, looking thoughtful. He frowned and grabbed his head in his hands before straightening up, eyes blazing. 'On Earth it would be the year four thousand and nine. Is that correct?'

Ganjud laughed once more. 'No idea, mate. Is that really important?'

He shrugged. 'Guess not,' he said noncommittally. 'Thank you for letting us stay here. I promise we'll pay you as soon as we can get some money.' He frowned again. 'You do have cash machines here, don't you?'

'Yeah, course we do,' he was told. 'But no rush.' Ganjud turned to leave. 'I'll see you in the morning then.'

'Yes, you will,' the Doctor replied.

Ganjud walked back across the room, only stopping when he reached the threshold of the door. 'Oh, by the way, what name am I putting down in my book? I have to have something, y'know, for the records.'

There was no hesitation before the Doctor replied, 'John Smith.'

Ganjud grinned. 'Good night then, John Smith.' He winked at Rose. 'Night, sweetness.' He left the room.

The Doctor walked across at sat next to Rose on the bed, leaning forwards to rest his chin on his hands. 'This makes no sense,' he said.

Rose shifted, kicking off her trainers and shrugging the Doctor's coat off her shoulders before shuffling closer to him so her shoulder brushed against his. 'What makes no sense?' she asked, even though she knew it would most likely involve some longwinded and complicated answer, considering the extent of the mess they were in.

'We left Earth in 1959,' he told her. 'And now it's technically 4009. We travelled 2050 years in an instant without even stepping foot inside the TARDIS. And now we're stuck here on some obscure planet the human race won't technically discover for another 1000 years with our only way of getting out stuck back in the past at a carnival in France. It makes no sense!' he said again. 'Think about it long enough and our heads will probably explode.'

'And it doesn't sound like things are going too well here, at the moment,' Rose said quietly.

'No, it doesn't,' he agreed.

'How'd you manage to work out the year back on Earth?'

The Doctor smiled and tapped the side of his head. 'Time Lord magic,' he replied cryptically. His smile dropped. 'We need to get back to the TARDIS.'

Rose prised one of the Doctor's hands away from his face and held it in both of hers, rubbing his cool skin in an effort to warm him up. 'Maybe we could get a lift,' she suggested weakly.

He laughed sardonically. 'What, you mean just catch a cab back to Earth in 1959? That would rack up one hell of a taxi fare, Rose.'

'No, I mean… The people here must've got here somehow in the first place, right? So there must be space ports and stuff, yeah? Maybe we could… I dunno; catch a rocket back to Earth.'

His face softened, pride in his eyes as he listened to her attempt to reason it all out. 'We'd still be stuck in the year 4000 and something.'

'What about the Time Agency?'

He moved his hand from hers to touch her cheek lightly. 'Clever girl,' he whispered, almost inaudibly. He sighed before raising his voice. 'But they don't officially exist and in this time they're only just getting started, at least around these parts anyway. Plus, there's almost no way they could get us back to the exact time we'd need even if they did agree to help us- which they wouldn't, by the way, can't say that they're my biggest fan- and plus we'd risk crossing back over our own timeline. We're still technically at the carnival in France, remember. We didn't officially go anywhere. It's… It's complicated,' he said. 'But let's just say that according to the laws of the universe and human error, or whatever you want to call it, it's almost impossible for us to get back to 1959 without creating some sort of time paradox at some place in the universe even if it didn't affect us directly. We're part of this timeline now, and we need to see it through. Unfortunately.'

'Oh,' she replied, not really understanding his explanation but not really caring either. 'It seems like we're still technically in a lot of places. How do we get back?'

'We find out how we got here and reverse it. And then we fix it so it can't happen again. It's the only way that's safe.'

Rose nodded. 'Okay. So let's get started then.'

He smiled softly. 'Tomorrow,' he said. 'We should rest first.'

They turned in unison to look at the expanse of the bed they were sitting on. It was large; easily big enough for two. The Doctor nudged Rose and she turned to look at him, finding him grinning at her with a cheeky twinkle in his eyes. 'You feel like sharing?'

His smile was infectious despite her worry. 'Sure. As long as I get the side nearest the bathroom door.'

He stood up off the bed and pulled the knot in his tie loose so that the fabric hung limply around his neck. 'Your wish is my command, sweetness,' he said, mocking Ganjud's choice of pet name for her. He wandered into the bathroom, leaving Rose alone with her thoughts.

She lay back on the bed, hearing the building's plumbing start to clank as the Doctor fiddled with the water in the bathroom. Her heart was pounding with adrenaline; out of all the things that had happened in her time with the Doctor, this had to be up there with the scariest and most bizarre. Not the bed sharing- that, she was secretly quite looking forward to- but the whole being stuck on an alien planet with curfews and guards and no easily conceivable way back home. Still, she thought, the company could be a lot worse. She shivered in the slight chill of the air.

'Cold?' The Doctor's voice broke into her thoughts as he came back into the room, wearing… Wearing, she instantly noticed, nothing but his boxer shorts. The heat instantly rose in her face.

'Umm, a bit,' she stuttered out, sitting up.

'I'll have a look at that heating while you go and get washed up.' He dumped his pile of clothes and shoes on a small table by an armchair on one side of the room. 'Although perhaps the temperature will rise of its own accord once we get into bed?' he teased her.

She stood. 'Are you sleeping like that?'

'Yes,' he said, amusement in his voice.

'Why?'

'Well, it's not like I thought to bring my pyjamas along on this little jaunt, is it? And contrary to whatever you may believe about me Rose, I don't sleep in my suit.'

'Right.' She crossed the room and went into the bathroom, breathing hard. She washed up quickly before resting her forehead against the cool tile of the wall in an effort to calm herself down. The Doctor was right, she thought. They wouldn't need to turn the heating up if they were going to be sleeping in the bed in nothing but their underwear. She felt her whole body blush at the thought as she downed a glass of water before heading back out into the bedroom.

The Doctor was already in bed when she came out of the bathroom, propped up against some pillows with the duvet draped over his knees. Rose felt her own knees go slightly wobbly at the sight of his bare chest. She wondered how he could be so casual about the whole thing before reasoning that his seeming indifference was probably some kind of defence mechanism, especially when she noticed the slight red flush staining his cheeks.

'You okay?' he asked when he saw her come in.

'Yeah,' she said, hovering by the edge of the bed.

He looked pointedly at the mattress beside him. 'Well, you gonna get in?'

'Yeah,' she replied. She pulled off her jacket and her socks and then hesitated. Looking back at the Doctor, she found he was staring straight ahead rather than at her. She smiled softly, before pulling off her shirt and her jeans and sliding into the bed next to him.

He turned back to face her. 'Rose, I'm so sorry about all of this. I promise we'll get it sorted.'

She silenced him with a finger on his lips. 'I know. I trust you.'

He studied her carefully as she settled her head on the pillows. 'Really?' He slid down to lie next to her.

'Yes.'

'Good.' He reached out a hand to brush her hair away from her face. 'Sleep now,' he whispered. 'And we'll fix everything tomorrow.'

She nodded, her eyelids drifting shut even as she tried to fight sleep. There was just something so… soothing about being like this with the Doctor. She felt protected, and she knew that he wouldn't let anything happen to her. 'Night,' she mumbled.

She was only vaguely aware of his lips brushing her forehead gently before he turned out the light and settled in next to her. 'Good night,' he whispered, his gaze still fixed on her face in the dark as he left his hand moving lightly over her hair. He wondered if he'd ever be able to bring himself to look away from her again.