A/N: Hello again! Sorry about the delay in the update, busy busy busy...

Thanks again for the lovely reviews. I'm so glad everyone's been thinking up ideas about what could be happening.

My thanks again to AzureFalls.

Chapter 4: Unlikely

The forest was dense and dark. The bright, blazing sun could barely pierce the foliage, and it made it hard to see anything. The Doctor stormed ahead, his eyes everywhere, searching for anything that could give him a clue to unravelling this mystery. Rose stumbled behind him, grabbing the back of his jacket to stop her fall.

The Doctor looked back at her, and grabbed her hand. He stared at her with that fierce protective expression that always made her shudder.

"Whatever you do, don't wander off in here."

Rose pouted. "I never wander off!"

He raised an eyebrow, his face never wavering. "I mean it this time, Rose."

Something in his voice made her nervous. She nodded, and let him grip her hand tight as they continued through the trees.

As the forest grew thicker, the Doctor pulled her even closer, barely inches between them now. She could barely feel her fingers any more, due to his grip. She made an uncomfortable noise.

"You know, Doctor, I never thought I'd say this, but you can let go a bit."

The Doctor didn't turn to look at her. "I'm not gonna lose you. Not again. Not in here."

Rose frowned a little, stumbling on another broken branch. "What? What do you mean 'again'?"

He paused briefly to regard her, staring at her with empty eyes. "I only just got you back," he said quietly. "I thought I'd lost you... on Krop Tor, and I can't do that again, Rose, I just can't."

His openness and honesty surprised him as much as it did her. Rose blinked.

"Well, you're not gonna lose me, Doctor," she confirmed quietly. The two continued through the forest in silence. The Doctor released his grip slightly, and Rose wiggled her fingers to get the circulation going again. She frowned in sudden realisation.

"Hang on, you didn't seem too worried about losing me earlier, when I went out for water!"

The Doctor paused, then shrugged. "Didn't know it was dangerous then, did I?"

Rose shivered at his words. "You think it could be dangerous?"

"Well, think about it. Something has managed to ground the TARDIS here. Not exactly gonna be something from Earth, is it?"

Rose nodded her agreement. She had to admit she had no idea what could be going on.

"So... any ideas yet?"

The Doctor stopped, examining the foliage as it seemed to thin suddenly.

"Well, it's definitely real. When we came back to the TARDIS on the beach and we saw ourselves, I thought we could be in some sort of simulation, you know, and maybe there'd been a glitch. But these trees are all indigenous and too varied and detailed to be a simulation."

Rose just nodded once more.

"So we're left with something that can interfere with space, time and the TARDIS. We know it interferes with time, because we saw ourselves, which, without time-travelling, should be impossible. We know it affects space because we can't actually leave, and we went all round the island in less than half an hour..."

"...And the TARDIS isn't working, so that can't be a good thing either," Rose offered, trying to be lighthearted. It failed. She was worried. Something about this place was just... wrong.

The foliage thinned even more, and they soon found themselves on the beach again. The Doctor stepped out onto the sand, and his face broke out in glee.

"Oh, look, bananas!" He rushed over to the trees, reaching up to grab some, but he pulled his hand back.

"Ah, erm... could be spiders." He took out the sonic screwdriver and pointed it up at the tree.

"Doctor."

"Bananas! I can't believe I was worried about being stuck here!"
"Doctor."

"... I wonder if I could grow them on the TARDIS; I've been looking for something to put in the third bathroom."

"Doctor!"

He looked up when he heard the tone of Rose's call, and, bananas in hand, joined her at the water's edge.

"But..."

"- That wasn't here before?"

"It wasn't, I know it wasn't. I checked. I looked. It's..."

"- Impossible?"

"Well, yeah."

"Well, less impossible now," Rose taunted. "More... unlikely."

The Doctor had to agree. He knew it hadn't been there before. They'd come round this side of the island before, and he knew he hadn't seen it before. But there it was, as clear as day.

Rose couldn't believe it either. "It's..."

"- Another island."

----

Rose lay out on the sand with her eyes closed while the Doctor tried to scan everything on the beach: the rocks, the sand, the shells, the trees, the water. Even the sky. He eventually came to sit down next to Rose.

"Well?" she asked, peering up at him through squinting eyes.

The Doctor took a deep breath, and smoothed some sand from his trousers. "It's definitely a real island. Everything about it screams authenticity. So why is the timeline messed up?"

**Two pairs of eyes watched curiously from between the trees. Whoever these newcomers were, they seemed harmless, and, to be frank, clueless. They must know where they are, mustn't they?**

Rose opened her eyes a few moments later to find the Doctor scribbling on a piece of paper, a bottle on the sand beside him.

She grinned. "Where'd you find that?" she asked, nodding towards the bottle.

The Doctor matched her grin, and patted his jacket pocket proudly. "Bigger on the inside!"

He finished his note, stuffed it in the bottle, and put the cork back in the top. Rose giggled.

"You really are a walking cliché, sometimes, you know that?"

The Time Lord ignored her remark, stepped over to the water's edge, and flung it as far as he could. Rose joined him, and they watched the bottle being carried out to sea, in the direction of the other island.

"What did it say?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Is anyone out there? Help, SOS, that sort of thing."

"Why?"

He shrugged again, and headed back to the forest.

"Come on, I wanna check on the TARDIS. Not good to be out too long in this heat, either."

Rose made her way over a large rock, her eyes glued to it, trying to keep a steady footing. She got to the top and stood up straight in triumph. Then she noticed it. There, in the sand.

"Doctor!"

He came running, and his eyes widened when he saw what she was looking at. He stooped down to examine it.

"Did you do that?"

"No."

He traced a bony finger around the markings in the sand.

"Recognise it?"

Rose frowned in concentration, and pointed to a marking on the left.

"That... sort of jutty-out bit looks familiar. Dunno why..."

The Doctor nodded. "I think it's supposed to be Florida."

Rose took that into consideration, and worked out that it must be a map of the Atlantic Ocean, or at least part of it. She pointed to a three-sided shape in the middle.

"Is that what I think it is?"

The Doctor nodded soberly, and stood up, looking her straight in the eye.

"We're in the Bermuda Triangle. And we're not alone."

----

A/N: Dum dum dum!!! I like cliffhangers *laughs evilly* Please let me know what you think xx