Author's note: Here is the second chapter for you, I hope you enjoy!

Chapter Two: The Search is On.

The Doctor woke with a sudden start, momentarily unaware of where he was, which turned out to be the console room in the TARDIS, sitting on the three-seater chair. He must have fallen asleep, six days with no sleep can do that to you, he thought darkly to himself as he stood up and stretched out before pulling the beeping computer screen towards him and putting on his brainy specs to peer intelligently at the Gallifreyan writing on the screen.

Eventually the Doctor frowned and kicked the centre console with his foot in frustration before falling back into the chair, grabbing his foot in pain, feeling thankful that the TARDIS hadn't said anything along the lines of 'serves yourself right for not learning that it hurts the first time that you did it'.

He sighed, running his hands through his hair. The Trickster had taken Bella six days ago and he couldn't find any trace of them in the entire universe and he was scared; scared for what might happen to her and scared for what would become of him should he not find her and get her back.

You are better off alone, Doctor… You do so much more damage that way…

The Doctor shivered, remembering the Trickster's cold words. He was right of course; when he was on his own he made more mistakes because he had no one to stop him from getting carried away. Donna had made him realise that, made him realise how important it was to have a friend that could stand up and tell him when he had gone too far, to tell him to stop. Rose had done that, so had Martha. Donna had so much, as had Bella…

He looked back to the computer screen; still nothing. He clenched his fists. Six solid days with no word, nothing, and not one scrap of news, of any information regarding the Trickster at all, which was unusual in itself. He had started the scan as soon as he had returned to the TARDIS. Six days of scanning the universe, six days of agonising silence.

He had paced the console perhaps one hundred times, he had stood tapping his foot impatiently whilst staring at the screen, he had unfairly yelled at the TARDIS herself for not co-operating, he had spent hours in the library trying to find anything that could possibly help and he had even turned over the attic a few times in a lame attempt to find something that he could have forgotten that he had to use to find Bella. But he found nothing to help him and time moved impossibly slowly.

He stood up slowly and moved towards the stairs. He couldn't handle the waiting anymore, he needed to do something, anything to make the time move more quickly. Letting his legs guide him more than his mind, he walked through his old time travelling ship that he had borrowed so long ago to run away in, the very time machine that he hadn't stopped running in until now. He had nowhere to go, nowhere to be. He was trapped at the Medusa Cascade until he found something that could point him in the direction of Bella.

He stopped walking, seeing where his legs had led him too. Directly in front of him was a brown wooden door with the name 'Bella' was inscribed neatly in curved, loopy writing, the closest thing to Gallifreyan you could get in a language from Earth. Slowly, he moved forward and opened the thick wooden door and stepped slowly into the room.

It was exactly how Bella had left it; the covers on her bed had been hastily pulled back after the Doctor had bounded in announcing that he would be taking her to see the sphinxes in Egypt, the violet snow in the Violetron Galaxy before finishing the day off with riding giant sea turtles in Fiji in the year 2150. They never got to the sea turtle part though… he walked in a little further, observing the posters of many famous Earth musicians such as Queen, the Doors, Muse, Pink Floyd, Madness, Jimi Hendrix, Alice Cooper, Florence and the Machine as well as her favourite, Imogen Heap. She also had a big poster and a scarf hung up beside her wardrobe in support of her favourite football team, Manchester United.

He sat down on the side of her bed, a bed that he himself had fallen asleep on so many occasions he had now lost track, and noticed a dark brown, leather-bound book that had fallen from her almost-overflowing bookshelf. He leant forward and picked it up, noticing as he did so the word 'journal' written across the front of it. He brushed his hand across it, wondering what Bella had written in there, but the thought of opening it too see never once crossed his mind.

He sighed again, his heart aching because he missed having her around before a rather loud alarm suddenly sounded through the TARDIS. He glanced around him at the flashing red light that accompanied the alarm before he suddenly realised what it must have meant. Abandoning Bella's journal on the bed, he sprinted back out the room and ran as fast as he could down the hexagonal-shaped corridors and up the cast-iron steps into the main console room where he leapt to the screen, whipping out his glasses again.

Clutching the screen with both hands, his keen eyes scanned the Gallifreyan writing before letting go and taking a disbelieving step backwards.

"You have got to be kidding me," he said slowly, the Donna-like phrase sounding strange coming from his lips, but he felt it summed up how he felt perfectly. All the stress and worry, the concern and the angst he had experienced over the last six days could have been prevented if he had of, for one second, just stopped and thought about the whole situation properly.

"Of course he would have taken her back home," he said, absolutely furious with himself as he flicked switches, pulled levers and pushed buttons, the klaxon rising and falling noisily as the TARDIS sped towards Tunley.

- O -

Sally Brenner watched her best friend move around her kitchen noisily listening who was listening to her Ipod as she prepared dinner, singing loudly along to All These Things That I've Done by the Killers. She felt that Bella Lumic seemed somehow very different from the last time that she had seen her, and it wasn't different in a good way either.

Since Bella had come back from travelling, Sally thought her to be even stronger as a person than she already had been before leaving, but it was like something was holding her back. She remembered when they had started their first day of school at King Edwards School in Bath with a smile. Sally's older brother Dylan had been showing off for his school friends by picking on her during lunch and Bella had come out of nowhere, walked straight up to him and told him very sternly to go and pick on someone his own size. Needless to say Sally had been best friends with Bella ever since.

But that wasn't what was bothering Sally so much. No, what was bothering her was a number of alarming things. Since Bella had returned, she hadn't once opened a book or watched television or even said one thing that was remotely intelligent, which Sally knew that she did these things all the time. She hadn't gone back to her home, she hadn't spoken about any of the recent alien encounters that they had had (as in the strange praying mantises and the weird space ships that had appeared over the Thames on Christmas Eve which even someone like Sally, who found it very hard to believe in aliens at all, found very interesting) and she didn't even defend the idea of aliens being real when some old bloke down at the pub had said that it was a load of – well, when he said they weren't real.

Sally took a deep breath, still watching Bella from the doorway sadly as she sung "Another headache, another heartbreak, I'm so much older than I can take."

When Bella had turned up on the doorstep of the little cottage that Sally rented from her parents on their twenty hectare farm, Bella had been dazed and confused with nothing but her mobile phone and her Ipod mini in her pockets. No bags, no extra clothes, nothing. Sally's first question had been "where's the Doctor?" to which she lamely replied "Doctor Who?"

Sally shook her head. It had nearly been a week since Bella had arrived with no memory of the man in the blue box that she'd been travelling with for ten months. She had asked Bella where she had been and Bella merely said "travelling" an answer.

It was funny really, because even though these things worried Sally, they all seemed rather trivial to the thing that concerned her the most, what terrified her even. Every night since she had gotten back, Bella would wake up, screaming in fear and pain, drenched in a cold sweat from nightmares that she wouldn't remember the next day. Sally had tried to calm her down, but each night it was getting harder and harder because the dreams seemed to be getting progressively worse. She needed help and she needed it fast, but she couldn't find a contact number for the Doctor in Bella's phone.

Glancing down to her watch, Sally discovered that it had just gone twelve noon. Yes, she hadn't managed to get hold of the Doctor, but she hoped she had found the next best thing who should be arriving any minute. Hopefully, this person could help Bella, or at least he would have a way to contact the Doctor.

A quick knock came at the front door.

"I'll get it," Sally said quickly, but she knew that Bella hadn't heard her considering she was still singing loudly while she cooked. Sally frowned as she moved into the small cloak room, opening the white front door to find a tall, attractive man looking to her concerned.

"Captain Jack," Sally said, feeling relieved for the first time in days. "Thank you so much for coming!"

"Where is she?" Jack said as he nodded, walking through the door, Sally shutting it behind him to stop the cold wind blowing into the house.

"She's in the kitchen," Sally said quietly as they both heard Bella singing robustly, Jack raising a surprised eyebrow.

"And the Doctor?" he pressed, Sally seeing a worried expression flash across his face. She thought that he obviously found it strange that Bella would be here without the Doctor too, and that didn't comfort her.

"He hasn't been here yet," Sally said quietly, watching him closely. "But I don't know what he'll be able to do, she can't remember him."

Jack looked sharply to Sally, who saw that this troubled him greatly. "What else doesn't she remember?"

"Everything," Sally whispered fearfully. "She has no idea where she's been the last ten months…"

"When you said it was bad, I had no idea it was this bad," Jack said before moving out of the cloak room and into the hallway, obviously following the sound of Bella's robust singing, Sally following him closely until they both emerged into the kitchen.

Sally watched Jack as he watched Bella, who was now singing Believe Me, Natalie by the Killers with her back to them. Jack gave a small, fond smile as he watched her until, after doing a little dance she turned around to face them.

"Oh," she said in surprise when she discovered them standing in the doorway, her cheeks reddening slightly. "Who is this, Sally?"

Sally saw Jack's face fall before he quickly composed himself.

"I'm Jack Harkness," he said moving forward and holding out his right hand, which Bella took.

"Bella Lumic, Sally's best friend," Bella said, shaking him hand. There was no sign of recognition her face. "How do you know Sally, Mr Harkness?"

"I'm an old friend of the family's," Jack improvised indifferently, Sally nodding in agreement. "And please, call me Jack; you'll make me feel like a very old man otherwise."

Bella gave him a small smile and turned back to the slowcooker on the bench behind her. "Will you be staying for dinner, Jack?"

Jack glanced to Sally, who was nodding fiercely.

"Yeah," Jack said looking back to Bella, feeling very worried for his friend. "Yeah, I think I will be staying for a while actually."