"Culture Shock" is an encounter with different cultures that challenge one's taken-for-granted assumptions about the way things are and ought to be, a complete disorientation.

-The Practical Skeptic (6th Edition), Lisa J. McIntyre (2013).

The Doctor leapt off his position from on top of his companion and raced back the way the two of them had come earlier towards the screams. Gilly, meanwhile, settled for removing her face from the mud and wiping it off at best as she could. Her camera, which she had been carrying with her all this time, had managed to escape being utterly destroyed by her and the Doctor's collective weight by flying off from around her neck and landing on a particularly soft mound of wet dirt. Unfortunately, it had not escaped the mud and was utterly filthy. The disgruntled albino slogged out of said mud just as the screaming stopped and the Doctor's voice could be heard shout in warning, "No, stop!"

She looked up to see Alsa powering towards her direction… towards the open space where the Fortress would have a clean shot at the stocky girl. Unthinkingly, Gilly planted herself between the girl and the opening. The albino had forgotten about the law of momentum conservation by Sir Isaac Newton from the courses she had taken so long ago, almost fifteen years prior. So it was a large surprise to her when she heavily rebounded from the force of impact, being sent flying back beyond the cover and the safety of the archway, while Alsa stumbled and fell on her butt.

The Doctor had chased after Alsa to stop her from getting herself unintentionally killed and was already in mid-leap, when the two girls had exchanged momentum. Thinking quickly, he adjusted for this while still in the air like a cat. Rugby tackling Gilly to the ground, the two of them rolled into the edge of the lake, its chilly waters slapping them in the face. A blue energy beam arced overhead and slammed into a metal structure a few feet away, the sound reverberating.

Gilly trembled, her heart pounding furiously from the near death experience. Voice wobbling, she said, "You… You ruined my only outfit, you owe me another after we get out of this alive."

The Doctor stared. He snorted. And broke out laughing, his shoulders shaking from the effort to remain still. "Done and done," he finally managed after a long moment of choked snickering from the tongue-in-cheek comment. "We can go to Spaceport One at Dorfnan City."

"Dorkman City, sounds great. Now, any ideas for getting out alive?" The Doctor didn't bother correcting her, instead he released Gilly and the two of them inched further back so that they were more fully protected by the low hanging brick wall that was mostly submerged in the muddy bank by the water's edge. He glanced back to see that both Gar and Alsa were back under the archway, safe. He told them to stay where they were.

"Were the ghosts following you?" Gar asked, voice quivering in fear despite his best attempts to hide it.

"No," the Doctor and Gilly replied at the same time.

Gilly continued, "But it appears that you two were. Don't you know this is dangerous enough as it—" She was cut off by the Doctor poking his head over the wall only to bring it back down very quickly as blue ray whizzed past. "You idiot, don't do that! Do you want to be killed?!"

He had the sense to look abashed while Alsa moaned, "No one survives this. We shouldn't be here. No one comes here and lives."

"That's about to change starting now," the Doctor assured the distraught girl before he turned to the albino and asked, "Do you trust me?" She gave him a flat look. He pressed, "Glenda Hopkins, do you trust me?"

She sighed, "Last time I did, you saved my life. Since you somehow got it in peril again, yes, I trust you to get me back out of this alive… Assuming you don't get your head shot clean off."

"Right, good, brilliant," the Doctor gave her a boyish grin that made her roll her eyes.

"Heaven help us," she muttered. "I'm stuck with a lunatic."

The Doctor tactfully ignored that comment, thinking quickly as he tried to make sense of what information that he had learned. "The Fortress is able to defend itself automatically. It was built for war, designed to function even after a massive assault… even after all the people manning it have long since died. The… lightning, as you called it, Gar, is really just your garden variety of energy beam. Motion sensitive, unfortunately for Glenda and I. Likely, no, absolutely, there will be more turrets lined along the wall at regular intervals… I strongly suspect for these so called 'ghosts' to be another defense mechanism. No one wants to go anywhere haunted, so the Fortress is projecting scary images to keep everyone away. Kills you if you get too close or stay around too long. That's all the ghosts are: holograms."

Gilly had a gut feeling that it couldn't be that simple. She had seen holograms before, and they looked nothing like the ghost in the alley. But who was to say that in the future they couldn't be more sophisticated? Especially when it came to the creators of the Fortress. Realizing this, Gilly kept her reservations to herself.

"So, you do this all the time?" Alsa asked.

"Oh, yes, fight monsters, right wrongs… go boldly where no one has gone before…" The Doctor smirked at his companion as if to share an inside joke, but Gilly only stared at him blankly. He sighed in disappointment before turning back to the task at hand, deciding that it was time to risk it. Very slowly, he made to stand up.

"Doctor!" Gilly yelped, grabbing at his lapels to pull him back down.

"It's fine," he assured her. "There's a trick to it. Was just a tick too fast last time. It's motion sensitive, like I said, following a set of instructions. It's only programmed to fire at things moving above a certain speed. Trust me." Carefully, the ex-mortician stood up and, keeping her eyes on the Doctor and her feet, began inching over towards safety where Gar and Alsa were watching anxiously. The Time Lord spent the time taking in all the surroundings, hoping to find the Glass man again to no avail. He also studied the Fortress in greater detail, spotting the turret that had been causing everyone so much trouble in the first place. He scowled at it. "Don't give into the temptation to run the last bit," he warned Gilly as much as himself.

Gilly scoffed nervously but said nothing. Two steps, three steps, more, and finally the two time travelers were safely under the archway. As his companion sank gratefully to the floor for a minute to recover from the high stakes situation that she had just participated in, the Doctor went further down the tunnel to check for ghosts before giving the all-clear.

"You're coming with us," Alsa declared, her eyes oscillating between the two adults as she endeavored to stare them down in an intimidating manner.

"And just where are you taking us?" The Doctor asked, entertaining the question.

"Back to the parents," came the answer, said in such way that it would have brooked no argument if it had come from someone other than Alsa.

The Doctor considered it for all of two seconds, biting the inside of his cheek. "I really have to get into that Fortress."

"We won't be able to go through this side," Gilly noted, as she reached over and picked up her muddy camera, attempting to clean it but failing. "We'll probably have to go the long way around and see if we can get in through that white building there. More cover to hide behind if the Fortress gets nasty when we enter it."

"You can get inside?" The slouching boy asked with a hint of disbelief.

The Doctor sighed, but his expression was one of enduring patience. "Yes, we've been through this before, Gar. A lack of a door is hardly a deterrent for me."

"What's a de-tur-rant?"

"Never mind that, Gar. The real question is what's he going to do when he's inside it," Alsa told her friend before looking up at the Time Lord in a challenging manner. "Well?"

"There's a weapon in there. A terrible, terrible weapon. Far worse than the ray gun. It's a weapon that's— here's a phrase that's over used, but not by me — infinitely more powerful. That weapon is what made everyone and all the animals disappear fifteen years ago… Go back home to your parents, show them you're safe. By tomorrow morning, Glenda and I will be gone, and the Fortress won't be a threat to anyone any longer. We're going in there and will destroy the weapon once and for all… Then we'll go. Like we were never even here in the first place."

Neither Gilly nor the Doctor had been paying attention, too busy looking at the daunting image that the Fortress impressed against the too-dark sky. This planet didn't have a moon, only stars, yet it was bright enough to make the Fortress appear to be looming like a dark mountain. And when Gilly turned to look back at the Doctor, perhaps to make another attempt at witticism, it was too late to warn him.

Alsa brought down the chunk of a concrete block hard on the side of the Doctor's head, making his knees buckle before he slashed helplessly into muddy ground, out cold. "No," she avowed defiantly before turning to face Gilly, raising the block again. Too late to run, Gar had a strong grip on her, she wouldn't be able to fight them both off. She was a wimp. The ex-mortician thought fast.

"You won't be able to carry the two of us back by yourselves, I can attest to the fact that he's extremely heavy for someone as skinny as he is. Not to mention that I can't go anywhere without the Doctor… Especially when two little psychos are holding him hostage…" The words tumbled out as fast as she could think of them, fortunately, they appeared to be the right ones. Alsa dropped the brick and Gar let Gilly go. "I'll get the arms, I don't exact trust the two of you not to drop him on his head. Trust me, his brain is damaged enough as it is, especially after you beat on it with a brick."

It took them a considerable amount of time to get back to the compound, and they had only managed to make it here as soon as they did, because they found a wheelbarrow to cart the Doctor around in — after everything was said and done, Gilly promised herself that she would never let the Time Lord live it down. As it was, there were very few people awake at the time, making the process of getting to a certain "Professor Jeffip" that much easier.

The compound was in the heart of the city in a large, flat expanse of parkland. There were close to a dozen structures of varying sizes made out of metal scaffolding and sheets of polythene. Scattered around were scores of tents in between and around the outskirts of the buildings. The pathways throughout the settlement were adorned in tickertape, paper lanterns, and sculptures made from metal pieces and bits of dead robot. There was a comm mast in the middle of the settlement like a giant totem pole. Faintly, Gilly could hear the sound of a fast-flowing river somewhere nearby and the steady creak of a large waterwheel.

Alsa and Gar led her up to one structure that seemed to be one of the bigger buildings. Alsa sent Gar inside to get the good Professor while she led Gilly and the unconscious Doctor further around the outside to another entrance. The two of them grabbed an arm and dragged the Doctor inside down several halls to an infirmary. Well, part infirmary, part laboratory, and part mechanic shop, if the surroundings were any indication.

The room was large with walls that were made out of a translucent plastic. Cabinets lined them, full with both glass and plastic bottles. There were also various tools and scientific instruments placed upon the countertops. On the far side of the room, there were two work tables with industrial tools strewn on top. Large packing crates were scattered around the floor, filled with scrolls, posters, and other rolled-up paper products. Along one wall, there were five sturdy-looking beds. As Gilly took this in, she was faintly reminded of her workplace with several obvious differences, like exchanging the beds for metal examination tables…

"Do you have something we can change him into?" The ex-mortician asked the stocky girl who looked at her cock-eyed. Gilly elaborated, "In case you haven't notice, he's absolutely covered in mud. I'm sure you wouldn't want to wash that out of the sheets, would you?" Alsa nodded thoughtfully and dropped the Doctor's arm, making Gilly scramble to readjust her grip so the Time Lord didn't get dropped on his head. The albino gave the young teen a dirty look, which went unnoticed, as Alsa brought out some spare pajama bottoms out of one of the cabinets. It was obviously made for someone with a larger build than the Doctor, but it was better than nothing at all. "Right, thank you," Gilly murmured absently as she eased the unconscious man on the floor.

Alsa watched with wide eyes as Gilly eased the Doctor out of his overcoat, suit jacket, tie, and shirt in a business-like fashion. The ex-mortician took off his shoes and made to take off the belt when the girl finally spoke up, "You're going to do that here?"

Gilly startled, looking at Alsa blankly. "What?" The girl gestured to the Doctor in an embarrassed fashion. "Oh… Yes, I am. This would be the place to do it… unless you want to drag him around some more. And, anyway, he likely hasn't got anything I haven't seen before. I've had to examine and dress cadavers as a job, this isn't that much different. It's not like I'm actually paying any attention to his body." Gilly turned back to the task at hand before absently ordering, "Look away if you are uncomfortable, Alsa."

The girl did just that as the albino changed the Doctor into clean bottoms. There was a moment of silence before Alsa asked, "What's a cadaver?"

"A dead body," came the blunt answer. "I'm what you would call a mortician. I fix the body if there are any faults, embalm it, and prepare it for the final viewing and burial, among other things. But usually Greg is there to help me out. He mostly handles the publicity aspect, since I tend to… unsettle people who are already upset enough as it is." She paused. "You can turn around now. Help me lift him, would you?" Between the two of them, they managed to lift the Doctor onto the bed. "Alright, do you have any disinfectant or alcohol? Also, bandages… Thank you."

By the time Professor Jeffip and Gar entered the room, most of the work was already finished. The elderly man gave a start when he first caught sight of Gilly's shock-white hair and pale countenance, but he was quick to recover. Gar's description, while embellished, didn't quite prepare Gilly for the man in front of her. He appeared to be in his later sixties with features that vaguely reminded Gilly of a bird of prey. It certainly didn't help with his eyes, one a pale blue and the other a rusty brown. His choice of hairstyle seemed mismatched, looking like something that would belong to an ageing lion with a mane of hair streaked in grey that started as a quaff before it went down to his mid-back.

He raised his left hand up in greeting which the albino mimicked awkwardly. "Ah, thank you for your hospitality," Gilly said. Although I wasn't given much of a choice with the Doctor being held hostage by the psycho-children, she thought privately to herself. She adjusted her dirty glassed that were still splattered with mud. She felt that she must have made quite a sight, as utterly filthy as she was from all the times she had been tackled into the muddy ground.

"Yes, it would only be natural… We don't often have visitors." He appeared to study her and the Time Lord laying on the bed. "Gar mentioned a Doctor, that would be you, I assume?"

"No, I'm a mortician, he's the Doctor. But I know enough anatomy and took a first aid course, so he likely won't be in any danger any time soon. No concussion, surprisingly." The last sentence was said with a discrete glance in Alsa's direction.

"What brings the both of you here?"

"Originally, I thought it was sight-seeing, but now the Doctor decided to reveal that he's going to deactivate the Fortress so it's not a threat anymore. He suspects that doing that will get rid of the ghosts. We didn't plan on coming to your settlement, but Alsa had other ideas."

"Where are you from, if I may ask?" Jeffip was looking at her shrewdly, and Gilly knew for certain that even she would not be able to lie to him.

"Not from this place," she admitted. "But a planet called Earth, over a hundred thousand light-years away."

"So you are an alien then?" Jeffip asked curiously, raising his bushy eyebrows.

Gilly's first instinct was to deny this, for they were the aliens, not her. A second's consideration, though, led her to realize that, no, in this case, she was the alien. On their planet, she was the alien visitor. Gilly likened it to the realization of a tourist not considering himself a foreigner when visiting another country but instead seeing the natives as foreigners. "Yes, although, it is strange to say so… We come in peace." No one laughed. The Doctor was unconscious, the two kids didn't understand the joke, and Jeffip either didn't feel like dignifying it with a response or also didn't get the joke.

Instead the older man nodded wisely and said, "I had suspected as much, as I have never seen a person with your shade of complexion. Forgive me for saying so, but it appears almost unnatural. Tell me, when you and your mate came to Arcopolis, did you have trouble in adopting our form? He seems closer suited to it."

"Adopting your… No, we naturally look like this. Well, he does. I'm an albino. I've got a rare genetic condition that inhibits the production of melanin, causing a lack of pigment in my hair, skin, and eyes. That's why I have to wear these glasses, my vision is impaired. And it's also why I'm so covered up, even in this weather, my skin burns easily in the sun… Are you telling me you've never seen an albino before?"

"No, this is the first time I've even heard of the term."

Gilly rubbed the bridge of her nose, muttering under her breath, "Now this is culture shock."

Conversation dwindled after that, as both children started yawning and passing it on to the adults contagiously. "We can continue this tomorrow," Jeffip offered, but Gilly had a feeling that it wasn't exactly a suggestion despite it being posed as one. She nodded tiredly in agreement, moving to pick up the Doctor's clothes. The Professor stopped her. "Oh, no, that's all right, you can leave that here for now. They will be taken care of in the morning. For now, follow Alsa, she'll take you to one of the spare tents to sleep tonight and will see to it that you are able to clean yourself of the mud."

"You are very generous with your guests, Professor Jeffip," Gilly noted.

The old man smiled. "It has always been the custom of our people." There, they split ways.

Gilly followed Alsa to the river that had been distantly heard earlier. The water was cold and a shock to the older woman's system with the sudden contrast to the warm night air. The teen had left Gilly to bathe while she went and found spare clothes for the albino to change into. Gilly had used the time to rid herself completely of mud and also cleaned off her glasses and the camera as best as she could manage. When Alsa came back, the albino was given an outfit similar to a sari that was olive green in color, patched and mended in various locations. "It's the smallest I could find," Alsa muttered defensively when the sari-like outfit sagged in odd places, glaring at Gilly as if she could control how her body portioned itself.

The albino didn't rise to the bait to the teen's disappointment. Gilly noted that Alsa seemed to be mad about a lot of things, angry at the world in response to the feelings of powerlessness within her. The older woman could sympathize but said nothing in that regard, knowing from experience that it was the last thing that was wanted or needed at the moment. So, it was without comment that she allowed herself to be led to a tiny tent where a make-shift hammock was installed. Swallowing down any reservations about the seemingly impractical resting place, Gilly got inside the hammock after a brief struggle and fell into an uneasy, but deep, sleep.

A/N: The next chapter is where we'll see a bit more about the culture for the survivors of Arcopolis. The chapter after that will be when all the action takes place... But from Gilly's point of view. As it is, I'm attempting to keep it real to cannon without taking every thing straight from the books or scripts.

Also, I need to think of this realistically, if Gilly was in a certain spot at a certain time, she's liable to be killed, and we can't have that. So, the action you see two chapters from now will be different from the action in the book, in the sense that Gilly won't be with the Doctor... He barely got out alive himself, and he has a physiology superior to humans, let alone Gilly. But I will be sure to keep the lot of you on your toes.

Many thanks to Emptyvoices who has Beta'd the entirety of this story and has corrected the previous two chapters. There's no significant changes other than spelling and grammar. (Thank you, shadowcaster01, for pointing out the one I missed earlier!)

Your reviews were much appreciated. And I wouldn't complain if you continued to shower praises or poke holes in my story. I won't bite. Much.