The Doctor and Lucy looked at each other, both with mouths slightly open, neither knowing what was going on. After half a second, the Doctor rose, his hand gently brushing Lucy's shoulder, bidding her to come with him. As they walked down the hallway, he kept his arm out in front of her, still protecting her. They stopped dead when the banging started. The Doctor frowned; this wasn't a let-me-in-so-I-can-eat-you type of banging. It was more like urgent knocking. The Doctor finally reached the door and opened it wide with his right hand, left already training the sonic screwdriver on whatever or whoever waited outside. And the last person he ever thought to be on the other side of that door was-

"Jack?" he spouted, lowering the screwdriver. "Captain, Jack, what the hell are you doing here?"

Jack's boyish face beamed up at him, the son of a bitch was grinning from ear to ear. "Hello, Doctor!" he said, "I need your help, again-"

"No! No, no, no, no, no. Every time you need my help, it's the end of the world; I do not have time for the end of the world."

Jack chuckled, once again taking everything as though it were a game. The Doctor rolled his eyes before stepping outside. Before he could get too far, however, he heard, "Whoa. And hello, beautiful!" The Doctor wheeled round to find Jack staring down at Lucy who had followed him outside, and still looked utterly confused. She sort of half smiled at Jack before the Doctor came back over and got between them saying, "Jack, I mean it. I do not have time for any of this. Now allow me to formally introduce you to Lucy Blake. Lucy, this is Jack. He's an idiot." Lucy smiled, uncertain. But she edged forward before anyone could say anything more, clearly drawn to the very sight that he had been. The Doctor edged forwards as well, half a step behind Lucy. He heard Jack behind him and when he came level with his shoulder, could see the puzzled and aggravated look on his handsome face. The Doctor looked down at Lucy next, who had never looked so small. Her mouth was agape and she did not appear to be breathing. She didn't blink. Didn't move a muscle, he was able to appreciate her level of control before turning his full attention to the present manner.

Lucy Blake was staring at the end of eternity. That was the only explanation. There really was no other way to describe what she was seeing. Above her was the biggest sun she had ever seen. This sun could fit eight of the suns she was so familiar with inside it. It looked as though the sun would dip into the horizon and set the whole place ablaze. And yet, she had the feeling that it was not sunset. There was no close feeling in the air, and though it was cool, Lucy had the feeling that this was due to the fact that the sun was dark, dark red. She recalled primary school days, thinking of the irony that in space, red was cool, and white and yellow were hot. Pink, orange and yellow clouds seemed to hug close to the foreboding orb, giving the sky a rusty colouring. She could see only one star above, the tiniest pinprick of light. Had something swallowed all the other stars? Were they really so far from any other bodies of light? Every few seconds a solar flare would burst into sight.

The sky was hardly the end of Lucy's worries. On the land before was….nothing. Emptier than the sky above her. She was standing on what seemed much like tightly packed dirt. It was rust coloured, like everything else. Far in the distance, away from the threateningly low sun, were mountains, or what looked like them, jagged peaks stabbing the sky. To her right was the only thing that looked remotely promising. A building. An honest to god building, complete with lights and metal that was utterly devoid of creativity in design. A rectangle, maybe ten stories high stuck in the middle of this god forsaken lump of rock.

Lucy had no idea who this jack person was, but he knew the Doctor, joked with him, and so, could not be that bad. Still, she had come to mistrust a handsome face. Then again, the Doctor….never mind. That was a useless train of thought, she chided herself. The Doctor was an alien, from where she did not know, but an alien nonetheless. She sucked in a ragged breath of air. Oh Jesus, she thought, even the air here is stale. She turned to the Doctor, sure she was not able to disguise her fear. He looked at her, and then appeared unable to give her an answer. He turned to Jack and said, "Oh, Jack? Would you mind telling us where we are?"

"Didn't you get my message? I sent it to you on the psychic paper. Come on, Doctor, tell me you got it."

The Doctor frowned and pulled out the psychic paper, sure he would find nothing. He flipped it open and to his surprise were the words Doctor, planet Antigone, Casanova system. Help. Urgent. – Jack. He recalled three years ago when the Face of Bo had sent him an urgent message that led to his second meeting with Cassandra. He had learned a year later, that the Face of Bo was undying Captain Jack himself.The Doctor jerked his head back toward Jack, who only raised his eyebrows in amusement. "So," he said, "Welcome to planet Antigone. Its sun is dying and the people here are stuck. I don't think there's anything you can do in the way of saving the planet, Doctor, but I'm stumped here, so I decided to ring you up." The Doctor looked round, finally settling on the building that stood alone.

"What happened to the rest of this place, Jack? The solar system? The, the life on this planet, everything?"

"Doctor, isn't that the least of our worries?" came Lucy's voice, sounding as though she had got herself under control. "That sun is dying and it's emitting solar flares every few seconds. What happens when they come here? They could wipe out what little's left." The Doctor shook his head, amazed at Lucy's ability to keep her head.

"Those aren't solar flares, Lucy. They're distress signals. That sun is alive." Lucy stared at him, this clearing bringing her quite close to the edge. Jack too, frowned and looked darkly at the burgundy giant. The Doctor heard Lucy catch her breath as another distress signal made itself seen in the form of an undulating tendril, probing in the sky. Searching for something, anything to help it. He saw a tear make its way to the corner of her eye and felt a strange stab of jealousy. Lucy's ability to make her feelings known and still keep a level head was a rare one. She had the rare gift of empathy, mixed in with an amazing knack for surviving, clinging to anything that would keep her head above water. That ability would serve her well, he had no doubt. It was an unfortunate secret that when one traveled with the Doctor, one became half-condemned. Life threatening pursuits dominated the flavor of life with him, and he had been told that agonizing emptiness and pent-up-energy ruled life after him. He often felt selfish for traveling with companions. He got to ease a tiny fraction of his loneliness while he led people on and then banished them to Earth for fear of getting too attached. But that was the problem. He always got attached. Rose was happy now, after years. Martha had welcomed his attachment when he was most reticent of it, least willing to ever travel with anyone again. And Donna. Donna had been the most important person in the universe for a few hours, had come into his life twice, had been the reason that he was alive and she would never remember any of it. She couldn't. He felt his hearts breaking again for Donna Noble. He looked now at Lucy Blake and wondered what her fate would be. He turned his back on Jack and leaned into Lucy, head ducked, whispering so that only she could hear, and said, "Come on now, Lucy, time to go inside and see if we can help." She nodded sagely and blinked the tear back. The Doctor jerked his head back to Jack and he led the way to the lone building in search of answers.

Lucy chanced one look back at the sun, the living organism that was sending its dying cries out to the universe. She took in a sharp breath to steady herself and faced forward, committed to looking only ahead.

The inside of the building was as unfeeling as the outside. Riveted sheet metal covered the walls and nondescript concrete (or what looked like it) served as a floor. Along the ceiling, every few feet were hanging lamps, glowing dimly, as though on their last legs. Every now and then, they would all flicker at once, throwing the narrow and cold hallway into brief but imposing darkness. This darkness was loaded. Lucy realised she was nearly holding her breath as she followed the Doctor and Jack. The Doctor kept looking round, probably investigating everything he could while on the move. What little she could see of his roving face showed that he was expecting anything. Though Jack was leading the way, Lucy sensed that the Doctor was completely at ease, and if left on his own, would wander about and eventually find his destination anyway. Lucy could find her way anywhere once in a building. Outside, she was completely useless. But this building was quite a far shot from home. No signs or arrows or markers of any kind graced the hallway. It had the feeling of a gateway, a seldom used passage that was just sort of there. And sure enough, they eventually came to a door. This door was just as metal and stark as the rest of the building. It was marked with a triangle, the tip pointing to the right side of the door. Lucy could not think of the meaning until Jack placed his hand upon the surface and pushed, door swinging open into the room, not toward them. Perhaps that was how one dictated whether to push or to pull? She wouldn't know until she found more doors and was able to test her hypothesis.

Once inside, Lucy gasped. The sun had been strange, the sky strange, the building strange, Captain Jack her strange, her whole new life strange, but this, well this was beyond belief.

People of all sorts were lounging about in a room bigger than her entire seven floor apartment building laid on its side. In the far right corner were what looked like appliances, cooking instruments and a few shabby tables and chairs. Everything looked like it was made of metal. The floors, walls and ceiling were all nearly white, every fixture and bit of furniture silvery grey. To the left, about centre of the wide room was a door that jutted out, this one with a triangle whose tip pointed to the left of the door. She had the sneaking suspicion that that room held a bathroom, as she could see none out here. Filling the space in between the make-shift kitchen and bathroom were just people, some or all of whom alien. What looked like families layed on blankets, or were curled up in them. They must be cold all the time, Lucy was freezing in her tank top and short jacket. She unbraided her hair, still damp, but warm around her ears and neck. She ran a hand through it and the smell seemed to waft toward Jack. He turned to her, half a smile on his face and winked. She had no idea what to make of him and so set busy with continuing her survey of the people aliens surrounding her. Most of them didn't even look up at the new arrivals. Children were playing, people talking, some sitting by themselves, and even in groups looking sombre and sad. Lucy turned to the Doctor for answers, though he offered her none. Maybe he had none yet. Even not knowing him for that long, Lucy found she didn't like the feeling of the Doctor not knowing what was going on. He seemed so sure, so practiced, and for him to be out of his element was startling. Jack turned his back on the people before him, herding in the Doctor and Lucy. Putting an arm round each of them, he ducked his head a bit and talked quietly. "This is a sanctuary. These people come from all over the planet, and I think this is the last base. The ones with gills and webbed hands and the greenish-whiteish skin colouring, they're from the Aquarius Colony. They can live on land, but they prefer the water, which was made unstable by the cooling sun. I haven't talked to many, they don't trust humans. The Kerrians, however, are delightful. They are from the, you guessed it, Kerria Colony. They are the ones with colour-changing skin. They love to talk and I have heard that several kinds of disease have destroyed most of their population. Apparently, changing one's skin so often lends itself to infection. The rest are human, drifters. They started out on Earth, made their way through galaxies and ended up here. Most of them are lamenting that, they need to drift to be happy.

There is no government here per se, but they have all seemed to establish a sort of leader. His name is Quinto."

At that moment, Jack broke off and looked at the young man who had just clapped his hand on his shoulder. Lucy looked at him, though she knew there were humans here, it was strange to see them in this setting. This man looked Japanese, his skin tanned, very high prominent cheek bones. His eyes were framed with very long lashes and he was probably a little over six feet tall. He smiled at Lucy when he spied her and Lucy felt herself smiling back. She took this to be Quinto. Sure enough, he turned back to Jack and said, "No more talking about me, eh? I'm no leader." Lucy heard an American accent and looked round for anybody who might be glancing his way, any family, proud of him for taking responsibility of this ragtag group. She saw none. When she looked back, Quinto was looking at the Doctor.

"I sort of…inherited command from out former leader. Kath was much better at this. She would know what to do." He suddenly looked down, grief written in every feature. The Doctor frowned and said, "I'm so sorry. Really I am. Tell me though, Quinto, what happened to Kath?"

"She tried to fix the pod charger and fell down the shaft." When the Doctor, and Lucy and Jack for that matter looked confused, Quinto went on. "Through that door are stairs. On the next level is the escape pod charger. It's dead and we don't know how to fix it. Kath tried to fix it, but it's suspended in mid air, she lost her balance and fell. The shaft goes over twenty stories underground. Nobody knows what's down there. At any rate, that was weeks ago and no one's heard from Kath."

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." came the Doctor's sincere reply. Quinto went on.

"We've been hearing noises though. Strange noises come from the shaft whenever someone goes down there.

"Does anybody ever try to go all the way down? Investigate, maybe?" asked Lucy.

Quinto shook his head, brow furrowing, frowning as though he didn't like his answer.

"No, the stairs are broken for one thing. Have been for a long time. Before we used this as a sanctuary base, as a matter of fact."

"And how long has that been?" asked Jack.

"About three months. That's when the solar flares started. That sun has been red for thousands of years, or so us drifters are told. We came here for adventure. To witness the last era of a mighty world. Not to be part of it."

"But the solar flares are harmless, they're not even flares, really." said the Doctor. When Quinto gave him a doubtful look, he elaborated. "The sun is alive, it's a living being, and yes, it is dying. Those flares are its, its, well, its last bit of communication. It just wants someone to know it's out here."

"It's reaching out." Lucy reiterated.

Quinto looked as though his legs might give way. His furrowed brow drew together and he bit his lower lip. The action reminded Lucy of herself. She didn't know why, but she reached out her hand and put it on his shoulder. He looked up and offered her a half smile. Two travelers, at the end of the road, with no way out. Well, she had the T.A.R.D.I.S., and she didn't think it would fit the hundreds of people in here, big as it was. And she also knew that with every breath in her body, she would fight to help these people out.

"This planet is self destructing." The Doctor was speaking as much to himself as he was to everybody else. "The Kerrians environment exposed them to diseases, the people from the Aquarius Colony, they're own environment turned against them too, well, with the help of the dying sun. A dying sun which is sending its dying laments out into the sky. We are witnessing the death rattle. And that mean, we are running out of time." Lucy looked over at Jack, the experienced traveler, to see if any of the Doctor's rambling had made sense to him. He looked just as lost. Quinto, of all people seemed to agree with him though. Well, he had lived here for three months, had lost his friend, Kath, and had probably done more than his fair share of drifting. Quinto seemed to finally realise that there really were newcomers in his sanctuary base. "Hang on. How did you two get here? Same as Jack?" The Doctor suddenly threw Jack a dark look.

"I don't know. How did you get here, Jack? I deprogrammed that bracelet thing you had. You weren't supposed to be hopping about anymore."

Jack looked incredibly sheepish. He actually shuffled his foot around on the floor and looked down at it as he answered. "I was doing some snooping around at Torchwood. I'm sort of a permanent fixture there, you know, and I found another one." The Doctor rolled his eyes and mumbled something that sounded a lot like, "Should have known." Quinto looked impatient and annoyed that his question still hadn't really been answered. The Doctor turned back to him and said, "No, we came by ship. I'm a drifter too, Quinto, and Lucy here. We're drifters of a different sort, but you get the point." He winked and Quinto seemed to take this as a sufficient answer. No sooner had Quinto opened his mouth to speak however, than rumbling sounds came from the door to the shaft. Sounds of breaking metal crashed through Lucy's ears and she had the worst feeling in the pit of her stomach. She turned to the Doctor, eyes wide. He was looking at the door, arm outstretched, holding the sonic screwdriver. Finally, the door crashed open.