When Donna woke after a surprisingly calm couple of days in which the Doctor had actually come up trumps with the idea of a peaceful period on a beautiful and deserted tropical beach she could feel that the TARDIS was in flight. She guessed that three days on their remote tropical island was too much to ask of her trouble loving adventurer. She was surprised that he had lasted that long.

For the first day he had tolerated it, accepting that he probably too needed a rest. She had even managed to persuade him to get out of his pinstripes and into some swimwear.

He'd enjoyed splashing around in the surf with her and they'd done some snorkelling though she admitted that a sight of a creature, known as a palmo, that the Doctor described as this particular planet's equivalent of a great white shark had put her off slightly and she'd gone in despite his protests that it was only a baby and no danger. As far as Donna was concerned if there were babies then there were also parents and she was not going to stick around to find out.

They had laid on the beach and he had ensured that she had adequate sun protection on, happily applying it on her bikini clad body in the areas where she could not easily reach herself. She had done the same for him. As the sun set the Doctor surprised her even further. He started a fire, brought a grille pan out, and set about cooking a meal right there on the beach. It was hard enough to get him to set foot in the galley on normal occasions, except to make cups of tea.

They laid out on the sands as the sky darkened, the cool sea breeze wafted over them, but the fire kept them warm. One by one a million, million stars graced the heavens and the Doctor laid on his back in the sand just relaxing and watching them. Donna laid on her side, watching him watch the sky and smiled slightly. It was rare to see him so still and so relaxed. He smiled as he turned to look at her.

On the second day he had spent the morning just enjoying the beach. Checking the tide lines for anything interesting and presented Donna with some beautiful shells that had been washed up. The island was small, only a mile across, and there were no other inhabitants on it and no dangerous animals, unless including the palmo babies – which the Doctor still insisted had not been dangerous.

He had cooked another meal, but then once they'd eaten he had stood and pouted a little like a puppy dog. He was blocking Donna's sun and he asked if she minded if he went exploring inland for a little while. He knew she would want to remain on the beach. She teased him a little about being like a child asking permission to go and play, but of course she granted it. He headed back into the TARDIS first, coming back out with his shorts on, his Converse, and a three-quarter length sleeved linen shirt that laced rather than buttoned.

Donna definitely didn't look at the way that the shirt hung off his surprisingly muscular shoulders or the way the ivory fabric highlighted the bronzed tan he'd picked up after only one day in the sunshine, or how the freckles across his face all kind of bunched up together when he grinned at her. She banished all those kinds of thoughts from her mind as he waved and then headed off up over some rocks and into the forest promising to be back well before it started to get dark and to cook again. Apparently cooking on the beach was very different to cooking in the galley and not domestic at all.

He had been as good as his word and had come back just as the sun started to dip down beyond the sea at the horizon highlighting the mill pond ocean with reds and oranges. He had fashioned himself a bag by stitching two huge leaves together with a bit of vine. It amused Donna that he had taken the time to do that rather than just come back and fetch a bag from the TARDIS, or, his jacket as he seemed to be able to fit an impossible amount of stuff in his pockets.

From the bag he brought some stones that had markings drawn on them and he'd seemed quite excited by the language that the engravings were written in. But then he'd put them away in the TARDIS and cooked them another meal.

"Two days at the coast too much for ya?" Donna teased as she went into the flight deck. Instead of him being back in his suit he was wearing a different pair of knee length shorts, his cream Converse, and that ivory shirt again. Donna blinked and tried to drag her eyes away from him. It was like seeing a boy out of their school uniform and suddenly realising that they were actually hot.

"Not at all," the Doctor commented from the floor where he was lying. He had the monitor from the console angled downward so he could see that as well as look at a large hand-drawn map that looked pretty ancient that he had lain out carefully. He'd also got the rocks that he had collected from the island the previous day. "I thought you might like to try a different island?" the Doctor offered. "Away from the palmo breeding grounds and a short hop away."

"A different beach?" Donna crouched down to look at the map he was working on better.

"Yes," the Doctor commented. "You see, I think yesterday that we were here." He pointed to an island on the map. "If you look at the aerial scans the TARDIS has taken of the archipelago it looks almost the same as the map, don't you think?"

"Kind of," Donna offered. "The islands don't really look the same shape and is there an island missing?"

"This map is over thirty thousand years old and was devised by a group of monks travelling around through the islands in sail and rowing boats. There was no technologies involved in mapping the islands. There are going to be some deviations and there are some actual differences, the planet we're on has an unstable crust much the same as the Earth, all of the time the plates are shifting and moving underneath the sea bed.

"The islands have migrated across the ocean floor at quite a staggering rate, and, there are in fact two new islands, or, more accurately, two new sea mounts. One of which has broken through the surface of the ocean and is an actual island, and the newest which remains active is an underground volcano. When enough lava is extruded it will breech the surface of the ocean and become the next island in the chain, until the plate moves further along the hot spot and a further island starts to form," the Doctor explained to Donna. He pointed the current features out on the map as he spoke.

"The markings on the stones you found match some of the markings on the map," Donna realised. There were hieroglyphs of some kind in a border around the edge of the map. The stones had the same markings on.

"I know!" he beamed. "It's fantastic. It was supposed to be a myth! And, look, islands that match the map and stones on those islands have the same markings as the map," he looked toward Donna. "And, I mean, most myths and legends have some sort of root in reality, don't they?" he asked Donna hoping that she would agree with him, but she really didn't know much about what he was talking about.

"So, which beach are we going to now?" Donna asked him.

"Well, I was looking at this cove here on the largest island, but the topography on the map and the TARDIS scans suggest that there is a sheer cliff around it and it's pretty rocky, so, you'd not get so much sun…"

"And you'd not be able to escape?" Donna raised her eyebrows at him and the Doctor looked shocked at the idea, or more realistically, shocked that she knew him so well already. She looked at the map. "So, are we going to this beach then?" Donna asked pointing to another section on the same island.

"How do you know that?" the Doctor asked her curiously.

"Well, I can read a map," Donna offered. "Those lines close together are the cliff, and, this beach hasn't got lines close together, or not too close anyway, it still looks like it is a bit steep going off into the green bits. Are the green bits forest?"

"Well, more like virgin tropical jungle," the Doctor commented, but nodded. "Rainforest."

"And, most importantly," Donna commented. "Don't think I've not noticed that bloody great big cross on the map!" Donna exclaimed and pointed to the black cross that was located closest to the beach with the impassable cliffs, but the beach she indicated to was the one nearest to him. The Doctor winced slightly and tugged on his ear as he looked at her wondering if she was going to be cross or suggest that it was insane and that they shouldn't go. "Is it a treasure map?"

"Well, kind of, not treasure in the sense of it being gold or pirate booty or anything of actual intrinsic value."

"No diamonds then?" Donna pouted slightly.

"Sorry." The Doctor chuckled. "It is said that the scrolls of the Great Mambosa contain the word of their Gods and the ways of their worlds. It has always been a mystery. The Mambosa were an advanced civilisation far ahead of their times within their universe. Like the ancient Inca or the Nazca's on Earth but with the ability to travel in space. It is one of the great mysteries of the universe, and, I admit that it has been a hobby of mine and I've collected some bits and pieces including this map and now to find those rocks? And, I mean I didn't even expect to find them, I just asked the TARDIS to locate a nice beach that we'd both enjoy."

"That we'd both enjoy," Donna commented and rolled her eyes at him. "And you don't think that meant she'd find something for you too?"

"Ah, I didn't think of that," the Doctor offered. He rubbed his hand over the metal grate of the floor. "Thanks old girl."

"She'd know you'd not want to lie on a beach all day. She put you on the trail of your treasure, and, you think the scrolls are there?" She indicated to the cross.

"If they are, then it is going to be one of the greatest archaeological finds ever," the Doctor commented and then grinned.

"But, Doctor?" Donna puzzled for a moment. "You've got a time machine. Why don't you just travel back to the time of the Mambosa and find it all out first hand? You could go and watch where they buried the scrolls."

"Where is the fun in that?!" the Doctor exclaimed. "It's not a treasure hunt when you know where the treasure is buried." He bit his bottom lip and looked at Donna. "Do you want to come and find it?"

"What? Come with you into the jungle?" Donna asked him. She looked at the map. "It must be about two and a half miles into the jungle from the beach where you're going to land."

"Yeah, it is, but… there is no scale on the map, so how do you know that from there and now from there?" the Doctor asked Donna curiously as she'd not looked at the map showing on the TARDIS.

"That is the island we were on yesterday." Donna pointed to it and the Doctor nodded. "You said that it was only about a mile long, and, this island is the biggest in the chain by far." She pointed to the island that they were going to go to. "And, our island from yesterday fits into the gap between the beach and the cross two and a bit times, so it must be about two and a half miles. Or, you could just fly the TARDIS to the cross?"

"And where is the fun in that?!" the Doctor exclaimed and Donna laughed. "Don't you want to come?"

"Won't I slow you down?"

"No, well, maybe a little bit, but not much, and it's jungle that I doubt any one has walked through in thousands and thousands of years. It's got to be worth exploring a bit on the way don't you think?" the Doctor asked her. He had no intention of following the map straight to the cross and back again. If Donna came with him then there would be someone to share all the new experiences with.

"Is it dangerous?" Donna asked him.

"It's a jungle," the Doctor commented and cocked his head slightly trying to think of the best words to describe the relative danger. "It's like any jungle. There could be dangers in there, but, it's not got hostile aliens or any large predators." He got up off the floor and ran a scan from the TARDIS. "There are some reptiles and the usual insects and things, some of them may be toxic, but I've got an anti-venom kit and I've transferred my pockets into the shorts," the Doctor advised Donna.

"You mean you transferred the things out of your pockets?" Donna checked.

"No, my actual pockets," the Doctor confirmed and then smiled. "They're bigger on the inside. Plenty of room for anti-venom. Not that we'll need it, but to be on the very safest of sides. And, I don't see anything that is any more dangerous here than in a rainforest on Earth," he assured her. "If you don't want to come then it's okay, you can enjoy the beach again, but I won't be back for lunch."

"I want to come," Donna commented. "It will be like we're real proper explorers," she grinned. "I'll go and get changed. Have you got a water flask and things?" Donna asked him. He patted his shorts pockets.

Donna went back into her quarters on the TARDIS. She was quite excited about being a proper explorer for a change. None of this spacy stuff, alright, they weren't on Earth, but it was still going to be proper exploring. She tied her hair back and the plaited it so that it wouldn't get caught up and no creepy crawlies might have got into it. She then coiled the plait up onto the top of her head and pinned it in place. She pulled on a pair of khaki combat trousers and a pair of thick socks and hiking boots. She then pulled on a vest top, but she didn't want to get stung or bitten by insects, so she put on a thin muslin shirt over the top. She only did a couple of the buttons and then she tied it around her waist at the bottom, so it just covered her shoulders and the tops of her arms. She got her sunhat and put that on, making sure that most of her hair was stuffed up inside it. She let a couple of ringlets fall to frame her face and then she went into the wardrobe room. She didn't want any creepy crawlies thinking that Time Boy was walking with a messy nest on his head either. She found the perfect hat for him and then went back onto the flight deck.

"Here," she tossed him the hat. He caught it, looked at it, and then grinned and put it on the top of his head. "It's like Indiana Jones's hat! Now you look the real part, no whip though," she commented and the Doctor laughed. "Right, are we going to land then?" Donna asked.

"Um, yes, right, time to go," the Doctor commented. He found his eyes drawn to the way in which Donna's vest top and shirt framed her breasts and how they jiggled ever so slightly as she came over to him. Apart from a few strands all of her hair was up inside her straw sunhat which was both practical and feminine. He could see the slightest redness on the skin at the back of her neck where she'd not applied enough sun screen. He blushed as he imagined smoothing the sun screen across her skin. It was totally inappropriate to be having such thoughts about Donna. She was a mate. She was the perfect mate with perfect... he cleared his throat and jumped into action returning to his pile on the floor.

The Doctor carefully rolled the map back up. He secured it with a metal band about its middle and then caps on either end and shoved it into his pocket. He didn't need to take the rocks with him, they would just be part of his collection of Great Mambosa artefacts. He had quite a collection of different things, he hoped that there would be more things he could pick up on the trail through the jungle.

"Here, breakfast, because I've not eaten and I doubt you have," Donna commented and passed him a wrapped bit of flap jack with sliced banana stuck to the top with melted chocolate. He grinned his gratitude as he ripped the plastic off and took a healthy bite. It was the perfect blend of carbohydrates to keep them going for their hike into the jungle. He had various snack bars in his pockets and if they were stranded then he had enough energy tablets to see them through a month. With his sonic, a couple of tin mugs, some water, and some tea bags he was also going to be able to make them tea when they arrived there.

He thought it might take a few hours to make it two miles through the jungle. There were no cliffs but they would still be going up toward the centre of the island and it had been formed by volcanic activity so although subjected to the longest weathering so the peaks were now rounded and colonised, it would still be pretty rocky in places. He was pleased to see that Donna had put some sturdy hiking boots on. He didn't want her to lose her footing on the rocks or roll an ankle in the middle of the jungle.

He double checked that they had everything he thought he needed and then he opened the TARDIS doors. She had landed on the most beautiful of beaches yet again. She was away from the tide line and beneath a palm type tree that curved up at the edge of the jungle so that its leaves gained maximum sunlight. The sand wasn't talcum powder white but it was a mix of grey, blue, and green grains that gave it a mousy appearance. It was still soft and it stretched as far as the eye could see in one direction and around the end of the island where the dormant volcano stretched upward in the other. The sea lapped up onto the sand leaving a repeated crescent of drift wood and other flotsam up the beach.

"We can stay here for a couple of days if you would like," the Doctor offered as Donna looked at the beach longingly. "I bet there is some good snorkelling to be had round by the rocky areas too. Unless, you have changed your mind and you'd rather remain on the beach?" he asked her.

"In this get up?" she asked him and straightened her sun hat. "Dr Livingstone I presume?" Donna linked arms with the Doctor.

"Now there is a man to go and meet," the Doctor suggested.

"Could you imagine it?" Donna chuckled. "He'd be right in the middle of the jungle in Central Africa searching for the source of the Nile, supposedly the only Westerner out there and we just turn up with a flask of tea and a plate of biscuits?"

They laughed as the Doctor double checked his direction with the sonic screwdriver. As long as they kept the mountain on their left as they went into the jungle they would be alright, though they'd not always be able to see the mountain when the vegetation was at its densest.

"Don't you need a machete or something?" Donna asked.

"What would I want a machete for?" the Doctor asked puzzled.

"To cut our way through the jungle?"

"There won't be much that is too dense to pass," the Doctor commented. "The plants still need light. Most vines we'll be able to skirt around or I can cut them with this." He grinned as he pulled a short handled scythe out of his pocket. It had a bit of rubber and a cork on its end so that there was no risk to his person if he ever lost the transdimensional aspect of his pockets.

The border of the beach to the jungle was gradual. They were on the sand, then they were on sand but surrounded by trees. They had to clamber up over a series of boulders a hundred metres or so away from the beach beyond which the sand was gone. The Doctor was the perfect gentleman and went first, finding the easiest route, and then helped Donna up behind him.

When they were both up on the tops of the rocks they looked out into the jungle. "Oh wow, look at it all?" Donna was amazed. There was a plethora of different plants, tall trees that stretched up a hundred metres above them on wide reddish trunks. They were covered in different vines that snaked their way upwards rushing toward the light in the canopy. Wherever dappled light hit the forest floor it looked like there had been a plant explosion as different shrubs, vines, and flowering plants fought for the light. Every shade of green and blue was represented in the different plants from the waxy emerald leaves of a head height plant with six pointed leaves that were a metre across to the tiny turquoise clusters of diamond shaped leaves that covered some long vines wrapping around a massive tree trunk. The smell was amazing, a dank damp of leaf litter and fungus mixing with the pungent fragrances of the colourful flowers attracting the flying insects that flitted around.

The Doctor was right, they didn't have to cut their way through the forest, but they did have to be careful where they put their feet as rocks under the leaf litter were as much a risk as the roots of the great trees where they broke the surface. They didn't see much in the way of animal life beyond the insects as they moved deeper into the jungle, but they could hear it. The Doctor explained that most of it would be tree dwelling animals living in the canopy way above them where the trees were filled with fruits and nuts. Insect eaters would come down to the lower levels in search of the leaf litter bugs, but many of them would be nocturnal.

A running commentary was kept by the Time Lord as they travelled through the jungle. They didn't push the pace and they stopped to check different things out. Donna was enthralled. She really did feel like she was one of the explorers in the stories that her grandfather used to tell her. She asked the Doctor enough questions that she showed him that she was neither bored nor totally dim witted when it came to things like this.

They had been walking through the jungle for about an hour and had probably covered over half a mile as they ambled and explored rather than hiked. On a tree Donna saw a weird looking creature, she wasn't even sure if it was a creature or rather one of the strange plants they had seen sending invasive roots into the trunks of the trees to tap into their nutrition as parasitic plants. Donna had thought it quite violent and unusual until the Doctor had suggested that it wasn't much different to what the mistletoe plant did on Earth. This one appeared to be hooked onto the trunk of the tree and was covered in protective spines.

"Doctor, come and look at this!" Donna exclaimed as they had both been drawing each other to look at the various things they spotted as they moved through the forest.

"What have you got?" the Doctor bounced over toward her. Donna peered at the creature or parasitic plant as it seemed to ripple. It rippled again. "Get out the way!" the Doctor hollered as he saw what Donna was looking at. He dived over her, pushing her backwards down into the leaf litter. She let out a shocked cry of pain and went to slap her hand over her shoulder where it just felt like she'd been stung by a highly viscous bee or wasp. "No don't! Don't touch it!" the Doctor exclaimed and caught her wrist.

"God, that hurts!" Donna exclaimed as she saw that she had one of the spines from the plant protruding out of her shoulder.

"You need to keep still," the Doctor told her.

"Just get it out! God, its stinging?!"

"I know, I'm sorry. I will get it out but you need to watch," the Doctor insisted. He seemed to tense for a moment and there was a slight pop and whistle that seemed to come from behind him as he was still lying on top of Donna, pinning her down, and it wasn't exactly the most comfortable of places to be lying. There was a tree root under the leaf litter and it wasn't just breeching the ground, it was breeching her in the most awkward of places. The Doctor twisted slightly on top of her and there was a further rapid series of popping and whistles.

"What's that sound?" Donna asked.

"Don't worry about it, it's nothing. Look at the spine," the Doctor told Donna. "Don't move your shoulder. It is hollow and it's filled with a toxin. If you move then your muscle will contract around the hollow shaft of the spine and that will draw the toxin down, and we want to avoid that. The spine itself is coated in the same poison, but not in much and it is what makes it sting. As long as you're not allergic it's nothing more serious than a bee sting. So, you have to be careful when you take it out," the Doctor advised Donna. He reached up to take the spine and there was another rapid pop and whistle. The Doctor paused. "When you take the spine you can see the black tip to it. You just grip hold of the black tip and ease it out in the direction that it has gone in. It's not barbed unless it triggered so it will just come out again."

"Get on with it already would you?" Donna grumbled.

"Sorry." The Doctor gripped the black tip of the spine and pulled it out of Donna's shoulder. A drop of blood rose from the wound and it dribbled across her shoulder and into the strap of her vests. There was already an angry red area around the sting. "It's going to be sore and maybe a bit itchy like a standard insect sting for a while, but you'll be fine. The poison sac is still intact look," the Doctor advised Donna and showed her that the spine still had the small bulb on the side that seemed to be filled with a yellowish fluid.

There was another pop and whistle and this time the Doctor visibly flinched and dropped his head down slightly triggering another two pops and whistles. Donna was too busy inspecting her shoulder to actually notice. "I'm glad that thing only spits out one spine at a time!" Donna exclaimed. "That bloody hurts. You can get off me now, Time Boy, fat lot of good you did too. Now I'm all dirty and I still got stung!"

"Yeah," the Doctor agreed. "Sorry about that."

"Come on then, off?" Donna suggested. She pushed up on the Doctor to get him to rise off her. There was another pop and whistle and the Doctor grunted. "Doctor?"

"Funny thing about spine weasels," the Doctor commented. "They never just shoot one spine. Fairly sure one would be enough and then it would have more defences, but no, got to shoot the whole lot. Leave themselves defenceless. Total over-kill," he ground out the end of the sentence through gritted teeth.

"Did it sting you too?" Donna realised.

"Just a bit," the Doctor confirmed. "Going to need your help… to get the spines out?"

"Can you let me out from under you?" Donna asked him. The Doctor tried to ease himself up further and there was a further series of pops and whistles. "What is that?" she asked him, but the Doctor just grimaced.

Donna wriggled out from underneath the Doctor. She expected to see one maybe two or three of the spines sticking out the back of his shoulder or something. She didn't expect him to be looking like a Time Lord pin cushion. There must have been near a hundred of them all sticking into his back, there was a concentration of them over his shoulder, but he had them all down his back, a few in his neck, there was even one sticking out the back of his ear.

He groaned as he laid down without Donna under him. As he moved there were further pops and whistles and Donna saw a line of spines sticking out of him all twitch. The little sacs on the top of the spines deflated rapidly and the spine whistled. It was the air being forced out the top of the spine as the poison was pushed down it into the Doctor.