Ok I confess: I TOTALLY forgot about the fic. Got a lot else on at the minute and completely forgot I was writing it. My apologies.

I'll try and get back into things as soon as I can but here's a litte bit more at least, to keep things moving along. Sorry gang!

The Doctor stepped cautiously around each corner, glancing back and forth as he went. Despite the clear cut silence, he didn't feel like giving anything the opportunity to sneak up on him or catch him unaware. He also continued to wave the sonic screwdriver in the air, trying to gather any sort of reading that might indicate something unusual. It was obvious that something was unusual, but by far the more unusual thing was that the screwdriver wasn't finding any evidence to that effect. It was almost as if the very normality of the unusualness was the key factor in whatever unusual event had taken place.

He gingerly poked his head around another corner. Then he blinked. His eyes narrowed. He blinked again. Just a few feet away from his position, stood the TARDIS.

There was no joy in this discovery. The Doctor was almost certain that nobody could move the TARDIS, which meant it should still be waiting back in the corridor he'd first arrived in. Which meant it could not be here now. Which meant whatever it was he was looking at now, it was certainly not the TARDIS.

The Doctor stepped towards it, screwdriver whirring as it scanned.

And then suddenly there it was; the reading that he could not find.

He looked from the screwdriver to the TARDIS and beamed.

"Hallucination!" he cried gleefully. "Hallucination derived from… Desire, I'd say at a guess. Seeing what I want to see."

He waved his hand through the TARDIS which was no more solid than the air around it.

"So where did you come from then eh?" he murmured, looking at the blue box before him. "Same place as Greg from Payroll's girlfriend?"

A thought was occurring to the Doctor as he muttered away to himself, a thought that took shape as the seconds ticked by and an answer was becoming clear.

A hallucination of whatever a person wants to see… The Doctor was now seeing the TARDIS and Greg saw his girlfriend. And what had Greg's girlfriend told him? Fix the machine. The machine that the Doctor was trying to find. The machine in the lab. The machine where the science was going on and which probably had a great deal to do with whatever was going on here. The machine that Greg from Payroll knew nothing about and in all probability had no idea was broken. So a hallucination, of whatever someone wants to see, telling them to fix the machine. It was quite conceivable that Greg would have hallucinated his girlfriend in a time of stress, but if he knew nothing about the machine, then nor should the hallucination. So who told the hallucination about the machine?

And then an entirely new thought emerged into the foreground of his mind. A new observation: the whirring of the screwdriver was no longer the only sound he could hear.

Whatever it was, it was big and breathing deep, animalistic growly breaths that were hot and vile-smelling, and right behind the Doctor's head. He was very certain that the thing hadn't been there a moment ago. The seconds passed and the thing hadn't moved. The Doctor started considering all the possible reasons why it might not have attacked yet. A) Maybe it was no longer hungry, having just made a meal of Greg from Payroll. B) Maybe it was peaceful, and not interested in attacking him. C) Maybe it was the thing causing the hallucination and since he'd not been told yet to fix the machine, perhaps the creature was simply not finished. D) Maybe it hadn't realised he was there yet.

Since the screwdriver was still buzzing away, the Doctor calmly redirected it towards the thing behind him, and took a look at the readings. It was definitely not human, and seeing as there was no indication that this ship was designed for any other sort of creature, the Doctor saw it fair to hazard a guess that the two species didn't normally mix. However, whatever purpose the creature had here was a separate issue - The Doctor was still fairly certain that it had nothing to do with wherever the crew of this ship had disappeared to. Those answers, he was still sure he would find in the lab.

He ran. It wasn't a decision he gave much thought to, but after he'd started there was really no alternative but to follow through. He didn't look behind him, he just sprinted as fast as his legs would carry him, straight through the hallucinated TARDIS, down the corridor, up a few steps, around a corner until he slammed into the back wall of an open elevator. He turned and quickly pushed every button for every floor, glancing back down the corridor as the doors slid gently closed.

The thing had not followed him, whatever it was. The Doctor wasn't sure what that meant, at this stage, but felt a little foolish for not having thought to turn and get a look at it before speeding away to safety. The thought of the creature was fascinating. It was something the Doctor had never encountered before, and he wondered if it really had been responsible for the hallucinations. If that was the case, then if Greg's girlfriend was anything to go by, then it was reasonable to speculate that the creature knew more about what was going on here than he did, or at least knew enough to send someone who may be able to help, in the right direction.

In the Doctor's mind, that confirmed it - He definitely needed to take a look in the lab, and see exactly what had gone wrong with this machine.