Disclaimer: None of the characters mentioned in this story are mine.

Chapter 5

She stepped out of the room, hesitantly, hearing the muted squeak of the door as it closed swiftly behind her. Wow, things close on their own here, she thought. Weird. She suddenly felt very self-conscious. The ship – she was still freaked out by that – rumbled and groaned as she stepped out. It gave the effect as if she were underwater. Apart from the groans, which, apparently, were a normal thing for the ship to do, there was silence. She looked around quickly, checking for any other signs of life. Nothing. Instead of relief, she felt a little scared, but she ignored this and contemplated her next move. OK. She was out now. Where was she going to go? She looked to her left, a long corridor. She looked to her right, another long corridor. She rolled her eyes. Which way was she going to go? She had to make sure she didn't go down the corridor the British guy went down. Cordelia looked down the right corridor again. She started to hear footsteps crap, he's coming she thought. He was whistling to himself, but she couldn't tell where he was coming from, everything in this place was so confusing. She quickly did 'eenie meenie minie moe' in her head and ducked round the left corridor and backed herself into a room just as the Doctor's voice could be heard coming closer to where she had been seconds previously.

Cordelia sighed in relief. She didn't have the confidence to move any further than where she was now, in case the Doctor were to find her as she tried to sneak out. She slid down the wall and closed her eyes, thinking about Angel, and what he would have wanted her to do. Angel was brave and valiant and noble, however he was also a hothead, and would not have kept his cool in this place. As Cordelia thought about it she knew that he wouldn't be hiding away in some room trying to escape, he would be demanding to be returned home. She knew that this is what Angel would want her to do. He would want her to be brave.

As she thought about all the things Angel would want her to be she longed for his company. There relationship had only just developed from 'platonic' – if it could've been called that in the first place – into something more, and even though they had only just started to bridge the gap between friends and lovers, she was already starting to miss his touch. She longed for him to wrap his muscled arms around her and kiss her on the head. She longed for him to whisper in her ear that she was going to be fine and that she would be with him soon. Cordelia suddenly realised how much she really missed Angel. As she sat alone in the dark room in an unfamiliar place, she realised that she had never felt so alone. She sniffed and a tear escaped her eye.

-x-

Rose huffed. Yet again she was being ordered about, and she didn't enjoy it at all. Angel's 'team' – if that's they could be called – had come back, and after a short introduction, in which he did all the talking and had introduced her as a English lass (she had almost kicked him at that point) who had unintentionally kidnapped Cordelia, they were asked to sweep up the rest of the mess that he had made in the lobby and couldn't be bothered to clean up. Needless to say she was getting some very odd looks from the team as he was talking. As soon as he left the room however, the looks turned into speech, something she had been apprehensive about. She didn't much care for being introduced as an 'English lass' – she was much more than that - and it seemed that she was going to have to explain herself about the whole 'kidnapping Cordelia' thing, something she was not looking forward to. It began as such:

"So what did you do with our girl Cordelia?" the tall black man started in a menacing voice.

"Yes, do tell us…'English lass'," – he sniggered - "how you managed to steal Cordy away from Angel, right from under his nose," said the man in glasses with the English accent, raising his eyebrow at her. The girl next to him stayed silent.

Rose glared. "Ok, first of all, my name is Rose, that's R-O-S-E, Rose. Not 'English lass' thank you very much." She rolled her eyes as the black man laughed. "Find something funny?" she asked in indignation. He shrugged. She continued "And secondly, I didn't kidnap Cordelia, alright. I don't know what happened to her, I don't know where she is; I don't even know how I got here let alone where she went. So you can stop accusing me of kidnapping because I don't know what happened to either of us, alright?" Rose finished hotly, turning away from them and continuing to dust. She couldn't believe she was doing this. She couldn't believe she was arguing with a bunch of strangers about things she had absolutely no control over!

"Aiight, cool." She heard from behind her shoulder. She turned to see them looking at her with somewhat ashamed expressions. She had obviously gotten through to them.

The small woman spoke, "We weren't blamin' ya – were we Charles?" she said glaring at the black man.

"Oh er nah, we were just wonderin', you know, how she disappeared. Wesley was just kiddin', by the way. We know you didn't kidnap Cordy," he said, apprehensively.

"I said I don't know how she disappeared, I don't even know who she is. I've never met her in my life." Rose replied.

"Alright, that's fine. We wont bother you any more," the small woman said agreeably, and turned to continue sweeping, giving the males significant looks as she did so. She had a Texan accent and a sweet smile both of which Rose found quite endearing.

She turned back to dust.

"I'm Fred, by the way, Fred Burkle!" the woman burst out with a huge smile. "Oh and that's short for Winifred, if you were wonderin' why I had such a funny name. My momma said she always wanted to call me Charlie, but that's sort of a boy-ish name too, and it would have been the same name as his" she said pointing to the black man. " And that would have been really awkward! Oh and when I was younger I used to get teased about my name; they would always call me Freddy, instead of Fred. I don't think my name is that peculiar, I guess it's better than being called a cow, or something else really horrible, although my daddy told me – " she paused and looked at them all. "Oh god, I'm ramblin' again, aren't I" the two men either side of her nodded. Rose just stared. "Oh god, I'm awful sorry, I just get so excited when I meet someone new that I just –" she covered her mouth and grinned. "I'm gonna…" she gestured zipping up her mouth. "I-I talk too much, y'all don't wanna listen to me" She laughed nervously and turned around.

"Erm, no…Fred, I think you're great to listen to." She almost said and you're really adorable but she pulled herself together before she let that slip. Fred turned to give her a huge smile before poking the man with the glasses.

"Oh – and my name is Wesley Wyndam-Pryce." He said and gestured to the man on his left, "and this is – "

"Gunn. Charles Gunn." The man supplied proudly.

Rose scoffed. "Is that like Bond? James Bond, then? Cause that was quite a bad impression"

"Hey, I don't try to be like no James Bond, aiight. I am Gunn. Just remember that part." He said, his face betraying a hint of irritancy.

"Alright then, I will" grinned Rose. She continued, "So what do you guys call yourselves then?"

He gestured towards Angel, who could be seen in a dark office, reading some papers. "'Angel investigations'. Duh?" supplied "Gunn". He seemed to be the liveliest out of the bunch. She chose to counteract this.

"Really? ' Cos I thought you would have called it 'We all have weird and unconventional names Investigations'", she said, trying to suppress her grin.

"You know, you're not making the best first impression," This comment came from behind her, Rose jumped; it was Angel.

She backtracked. She realised these people didn't know her, which meant that she had to be more careful about her humour. The Doctor would have found that amusing, she thought sourly. She tried to explain herself. "Oh I was just jok-"

"Nah, I think she's cool actually. You know, the type of girl that calls it how she sees it," said Gunn.

Angel looked at him steadily, raising his eyebrows. "It's the English accent, right?"

Gunn laughed heartily, "Yeah, I guess a guy's gotta love a English chick right?" Rose smiled. "But I still don't trust her," he said, effectively wiping the smile off her face.

"What?" she asked.

Rose folded her arms and looked at them all with disdain; she wasn't very happy, coming here and being treated as though she had done something wrong. It wasn't even her choice to be here in the first place.

"Hey, just calling it like I see it. We come in to find a demon waiting for us, and then find out that Cordelia is missing and that we have a new house guest? It don't seem right to me."

"For the last time, I haven't done anything to her. I don't know her at all," Rose exclaimed. "And I thought you said that you don't think that I kidnapped her?"

"I don't, but my instincts are telling me something fishy is going down and that you might have something to do with that. Angel will keep an eye on things anyway," He said, stretching and reaching his arm out in an obvious way to pull Fred in for a hug. "Well, I'm gonna head home, you coming, Fred?" he said, looking down at Fred, who had remained silent after her little rant, with obvious love.

"Yeah sure," she smiled up at him adoringly and he kissed her just as Wesley said, "Yes, I'd better be heading home too," He studiously ignored the couple to his right and looked at Rose. "It was nice meeting you," he started to walk away, but stopped, "Oh and I will take it that that comment about our names was a joke" he said, turning back to give her a small smile before walking out the double doors. Gunn followed, gently pulling Fred along with him.

"Come on, girl" said Gunn, as he attempted to pull Fred out of the lobby.

"Bye, Rose. It was nice meetin' ya." Gunn continued walking, "Um I'll see you tomorrow, that is if you're not sick of us all already and aren't coming back." She said, her eyes betraying her worry that it was true.

"Uh…no, I think I'll be here tomorrow – there's now way I'm getting back home today." She said, wryly.

"That's great!" Fred said, undeterred by the lifelessness in Rose's voice, just as she reached the door and was pulled behind it.

Rose sighed.

"Bye!" Fred called from the doorway, as she popped her head back in.

"Bye." Rose murmured quietly. Angel came to stand beside her.

"Well at least Fred likes you," said Angel in an obvious attempt to lighten Rose's mood.

"Yeah, I seem to have made a great impression on the rest of them," Rose said sarcastically.

"Don't worry, they'll come around. But in the mean time, it's late and you've had a long day. I've set up a room for you upstairs, room 124 – it's a floor down from my room, just encase… anything happens"

"And what am I going to do about pyjamas and toiletries?" Rose asked, already feeling the effects of the day, and suddenly wishing to go to room 124 to get some well-deserved rest.

"Oh." Woops, Angel thought.

It looked like she was going to have to wait for that.

A/N – Well there it is. I know it's more Angel and Rose based than it is Cordelia and Doctor based for the time being, but that's sort of where the story is heading at the moment. I will try to add in more scenes from the TARDIS in the next chapter. Thanks for reading. Xxx