A/N: Hello. I'm back. My apologies for the ridiculously long absence; if you want to know why I've been away I've written a brief explanation (and another apology) on my profile page. I plan to update and FINISH all my stories listed as ON HIATUS. According to the poll I took, most readers wanted me to finish this story first. So here goes, hope you enjoy.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter Six: Unearthly

"When did you crash?" the quiet woman whispered to Rose. Rose jumped a little, not realising she had moved so close. The woman smiled apologetically.

"Um... sometime yesterday I think."

"Then yours must be the blue box."

"Yes, that's ours." The Doctor's attention was suddenly focused on this quiet woman. "Why do you ask?"

The woman hesitated.

"That's when it happened. Yesterday. That was when time broke."

Rose glanced at the Doctor, expecting him to present the woman with an onslaught of questions, but he just stared past her, blankly into space. Rose decided she'd have to ask for him.

"What's your name?" Rose asked the woman, who looked as though she regretted ever speaking.

"Um... Florence."

"Florence, what do you mean, 'time broke'?"

Florence glanced nervously at the Doctor, who was still lost in thought. "Well, that's just what we're calling it." She looked around at the small shipwrecked group as if to include them, though most of them weren't really listening. "It started when Rebeccah and Joseph went into the forest to get some bananas. I know they're only little but they play in there all the time so we thought nothing of it," she tried to explain. "Only a moment later they reappeared, they're arms full of fruit, and a bag overflowing!" She put a hand on Rose's shoulder to steady herself; apparently the very memory of it made her feel faint. "I asked them how they could possibly have gathered all that in such a fleeting moment... but they said they'd been gone all morning. They'd even played hide and seek, and stopped at the lagoon for a swim. Their story must have been true – their hair and clothes were still damp!"

Rose made the trembling woman sit on the sand as she recounted several 'impossible' incidents that had occurred since the previous morning.

The Doctor blinked out of his reverie a little while later. Of course he had been listening to Florence's tale – it sounded in keeping with what he already knew of time on the island – but his mind was sparking and firing new thoughts and ideas faster than fireworks.

He turned back to the Professor, who was making himself some sort of brew with a kettle on a small campfire. Harling poured the brew into two chipped mugs, and offered one to the Doctor.

"Ah, thanks," he accepted gratefully. He took a long swing, burning his mouth but pretending he hadn't.

"Tell me, Professor," he enquired, nonchalantly trying to cool his tongue, "you said 'nothing' works on this island. What did you mean?"

"I mean nothing at all works," the tired man replied simply.

"Like what?"

"I managed to salvage certain components from the engine of the ship," he answered. "Didn't really expect them to function perfectly of course, but after weeks of tinkering... nothing. And I don't mean to say that I am an engineer, but Paul, over there, is quite literally the most capable mechanic I have ever met, and even he was befuddled. He would manage to get things working, then in moments, they would crash and die. The same with the radio, and that had no water damage at all!"

The Doctor nodded absently, kicking at the edge of the fire with his sneaker. Harling watched him.

"The first night, when I tried to make a fire, I thought I was going insane," he admitted. "Swallowed too much seawater or something. I got the fire lit after what must have been an hour, and then..."

"What happened?" the Doctor asked quietly.

"It seemed as though the sky... absorbed it. It flew up into the air away from the wood, and headed over into the forest, out of sight. I can't be sure of exactly what happened, and perhaps I was seeing things, because I tried again and the fire was fine..."

Harling trailed off, looking over the Doctor's shoulder towards the ocean. The Time Lord turned to follow his gaze, and saw a familiar sight, bobbing up and down in the foam.

The bottle he had sent out on the waves, not an hour before.

He rushed over and grabbed it, pulling out the message inside. Sure enough, his handwriting, his words. He stared over the water at the other island on the horizon, his hand shading his eyes from the blaring sun. Harling joined him, and took the bottle from his hand.

"What's this?" he asked, more to himself than the Doctor.

"It's the message I wrote not long ago. I thought maybe someone on the other island would find it. But..." he glanced back at the forest, then looked back out at the other island.

"Harling, has anyone made contact with that other island?"

"No, sadly, we attempted, but our raft wouldn't hold together."

The cogs in the Doctor's head whirred and churned. "There hasn't been enough time for this to get all the way out to the horizon, but then again, the tide hasn't turned yet." He spun to look at the baffled Professor. "I think that that island... is this island."

Meanwhile, Florence had left to go lay down in her make-shift tent, leaving Rose to look around the campsite and smile awkwardly at anyone who happened to make eye contact. Normally she would be the first person to go say hello, after the Doctor, but she was still in shock from finding people on this supposedly deserted island, and she still felt a little freaked by everything that had happened.

She felt a tug on the hem of her shirt, and she saw the little girl from before, looking up at her earnestly.

"Hello," Rose gave her brightest smile and used her softest voice. "You're Rebeccah, right?"

Rebeccah nodded, then beckoned for her to lean down. Rose sat down on the sand next to her. Rebeccah shuffled back a little, then glanced at the edge of the forest. She stood up abruptly.

"Wait here," she whispered.

Rose put her finger on her lips in response to the whisper, and waited as the little girl ran off to the tree line, and returned with the little boy they had seen earlier. Rebeccah pushed him forward towards Rose.

"Go on, ask her, Joseph!"

Joseph backed off, trying to push Rebeccah in front of him. "I'm not going to ask; you ask!"

Rose took her finger from her lips and turned to face them squarely. "Ask me what?"

Joseph glanced at Rebeccah, then turned to Rose. His eyes were startlingly alert.

"Are you here about the Zenith?"

Rose was instantly all ears. "Maybe..." she said carefully. "What can you tell me about it?"

"I don't think she knows," Rebeccah said, almost sadly.

Rose bit her lip. "Maybe you could tell me what you mean. What is the Zenith?"

Joseph stood up. "We could take you."

Rose was just about to answer, when the Doctor called to her. The two children took this chance to scurry away into one of the tents. Rose sighed in frustration, but got up and headed over to the Doctor.

"Let's stay here for a bit," he suggested. "There's no point going back to the TARDIS when nothing's working, and I need to know more about what's been happening before I can start theorising."

"Well, okay, if you want to stay here, but I'm gonna go find them kids again, they were gonna show me something in the forest, I think."

"No, Rose, you stay here."

He said it in such a determined and final manner that Rose frowned impulsively. "But it might be important! They said they knew where something was, and asked me if I knew about it."

The Doctor stepped closer to her, so close she could feel his breath on her face.

"Whatever it is, they know how to find it, and they will still know how to find it later. They can show you tomorrow. These people need our help, and before we go trekking off looking for something that we don't understand, we should probably... like you said, gather and review all the evidence."

Rose pouted a little. "You just don't want me wandering off."

The Doctor looked hurt. "I want you safe," he replied. Those same words she'd said to him so long ago.

Rose swallowed, trying to fathom the emotion behind his eyes. "I would be safe. Like you said, it's only a forest."

The Doctor sighed, and closed his eyes. "I didn't want to tell you right away, I didn't want to scare you. But Rose, I don't think we," he gestured to the shipwrecked camp, "are the only ones here."

Rose's skin froze all over her body. "What do you mean?"

"Remember the markings in the sand we saw earlier? The map of Florida and the Bermuda Triangle?"

She nodded.

"I asked Professor Harling. He said the whole group was together all day. No one strayed that far from the camp. None of them could have drawn it."

The Doctor and Rose decided to stay for the night at the camp, rather than drag themselves all the way back to the TARDIS in the dark. They ate some fish and some fruit – Rose had to stop the Doctor after his fifth banana. There seemed to be an abundance of food here, and the Doctor wondered how that could possibly be – it was such a small place, and the survivors been here three months, give or take. Surely the whole island should have been picked clean long ago?

The whole group seemed fairly relaxed and chatty around the fire. Except for the two children. They clung to their mother's arms, obviously scared. Their mother tried to calm them, reassure them that there was nothing lurking in the darkness.

The next thirty seconds changed that concept altogether.

Two small figures appeared as if from nowhere, fully clothed and perfectly human except for the bright glow that emitted from every inch of their bodies. Several people screamed; some tried to run. Rose clung to the Doctor, remembering instantly what he had said only hours earlier. I don't think we are the only ones here.

The Doctor stood up, but made no other movement. The two glowing figures watched the panicking crowd with interest, but made no move to attack them. So the Doctor watched, keeping a tight hold on Rose's hand.

One of the figures raised its hand in front of itself, palm up, and suddenly the whole place grew silent, except for the crackling of firewood. Everyone had stopped stock still, as if frozen in place, their fear etched into their faces. Then began the voices.

Every one of the shipwrecked people began speaking at once, calmly, logically, and consistently. Everyone saying something different at the same time, so it sounded like an incoherent babble. Rose tried to make out what some of them were saying.

"Fish cannot live in the Dead Sea because there is too much salt in it."

"The colour green can be made by mixing the primary colours blue and yellow."

"Earth is the only planet in the solar system not named after a god."

"The fastest surface wind ever recorded was 231 miles per hour in New Hampshire, America on April 12, 1934."

"Twelve times twelve is 144."

"The gestation period for the dormouse is 22 – 24 days."

Rose tried to follow the Doctor, who was now rushing from person to person, trying to make eye contact, trying to wake them from their trance.

"Doctor, why have they turned into Wikipedia?"

The Doctor rushed over to the small glowing figure with the outstretched hand, and very calmly, but with a distinct air of authority, said, "Whatever you are doing, I want you to stop."

The small person looked up at him slowly, then, after a few moments, lowered its hand. The people stopped jabbering, but remained motionless. The figures both stared at the Doctor, and he stared back.

Then suddenly, people started moving again, as if thawed instantaneously from ice or unfrozen from time.

The glowing figures turned to the people, and spoke with voices like nails on a chalkboard.

"Thank you."

Then, as quickly as they had appeared, they vanished once more.