A/N: Hey! So here's chapter 2, hope it's alright! Feedback is always lovely so don't be shy to review! There might be some typos that I've missed, if so, I apologise. This story might work its way up to an M rating in the future but at the moment I'm just having fun playing around. Enjoy:

Chapter 2.

The first thing that Sarah became aware of as she came back to consciousness was a strange sort of mournful humming sound surrounding her, then the pain kicked in. Her brain felt at least three times bigger than her skull and she had an ache on the side of her forehead, reaching up to touch it, she held back a wince and concluded that the strange giraffe-man had not, in fact, caught her on her way to meet the floor. You'd think such gangly arms would be faster than that. With the remembrance of the man so too came the memories of the rest of the day; the rat, the something that she had affectionately dubbed Ron in her state of shock, and then her bout of hysteria. Feeling shame pool low within her stomach Sarah refused to open her eyes. Nope, not gunna happen. Maybe if I just lay here everything will miraculously stop getting weird. She scrunched up her face as she felt a gentle prodding to her cheek, screwing her eyes closed and shaking her head as the prodding escalated to poking.

"Come on! I know you're awake, you know you're awake. Let's all be awake together." Before the giraffe-man's voice had even finished two fingers had pried the eye-lid of her left eye open. Forcing her to come eye-to-eye, quite literally, to what she thought was the giraffe-man, but it was hard to be certain when all she could see was the man's green cornea. As she relented and opened her other eye Sarah become distracted by the strange colouring's imbedded within his eyes, it wasn't just green as thought of at first but blue and brown all swirling together and culminating in a ring of golden yellow that circled the iris. Stardust. Sarah thought; that's what she imagined stardust would look like.

"Hello!" The jaunty greeting snapped her out of her reverie; she became increasingly aware of the close attention she had just paid him and felt an alarming blush break it's way across her cheeks.

"Bubble" she croaked out "Personal bubble. Learn it. Utilise it. Obey it." Her throat was scratchy and sore, how long had she been out? She pushed up onto her elbows as he huffed out a breath and took a large measured step away. "How long was I a passed out for? What happ-" Her ability to make speech or any sounds at all screeched to halt as she looked around the room she was in. She was currently lying on a seat of some kind, almost like the one's in her car, although less stained, but that was not the focus of her attention. It looked like some kind of console room from a badly made 80's sci-fi film; high walled silver chrome emitting a cold chill which contrasted with what stood in the middle, a veritable warm console; hexagonal in shape the thing emitted lights from every direction and was far too technical for Sarah's brain to conceive, especially with the 76 trombones practicing their recital within her skull at this very moment. The thing that especially drew her attention though, was at the very heart of the room and the very console itself; it was a large cylindrical tube that went straight through what Sarah thought was the control panel and as high as Sarah could see while straining her neck upwards. It glowed a warm blue and pulsated slightly while the contraption within the tube moved up and down; if she strained hard enough she could just about make out the humming sound that she had heard earlier. Without her realising Sarah had moved across the room towards the console, distracted by the pretty lights she moved her hand to prod a large red button.

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! No touchy!" Sarah snatched her hand back as the sudden sting of the slap the giraffe-man had administered registered in her star struck brain. She shot a baleful glare towards him as he shouldered his way between her and the button, stretching himself wide to encompass as much of the console as he could. Sarah backed off a few steps while shooting the big button a look that clearly stated that this wasn't over, preoccupied in a staring contest with the button Sarah was only just beginning to realise where she was. Alone. She was alone. With giraffe-man and what looked like an alien spaceship. She took a deep breathe in and then out; she'd already passed out once and she didn't plan on doing it again within the next 50 years if she could help it. She went through all the possibilities; it couldn't be a prank, she moved to London 2 years ago and hadn't met an abundance of people and the people she had met hardly had the imagination to pull this off, while her friends back in Bristol had already moved onto the next big steps in life; the kids, the weddings, all things that made Sarah shudder and blanche. Okay, so not a prank, which unfortunately rules out most of Sarah's theories. Unless it really looked like this man had an alien spaceship, did that make him an alien? Weeeeell… she thought, the idea didn't seem completely implausible considering what she had seen earlier. Was this man and Ron connected? Either way, Sarah's imagination started to run double time: alien ship = alien, right? And what do alien's do to human's they've abducted… She took another deep breath and slowly started backing away from the giraffe-man/alien who had turned his back to her and was seemingly stroking the console and mumbling to it in concerned tones. She glanced behind her to see where she was going and saw what looked like a double door exit. Perfect. All she had to do now was reach the doors without him noticing, which seemed easier said than done because as soon as she picked up her pace towards the exit she heard a rustle and then a shout;

"Oi! Where d'you think you're going?!" Just a few more steps, just a few more A hand landed on her shoulder as she made a futile lunge towards the door. Suddenly plucked from thin air she was suspended mid jump by surprisingly strong arms, a frozen moment later and Sarah plucked herself out of her surprise and started thrashing in his hold. "No! Please! Not the probe! Anything but the probe! I tried it with an old boyfriend before and I didn't like it! Please have mercy!"

A serious of spluttering words later and more useless wriggling and Sarah had made just enough room to manoeuvre around in the man's hold. As she peered into his face, she stopped trying to free herself immediately and had to supress a snort. His face was frozen, seemingly stuck on a horrified expression with his mouth agape, he tried to make some sounds but the only thing that would come were strange squeaking noises. She decided to repay his earlier rudeness and started poking his cheek then his overly large chin to close his mouth. It shut with a click and he managed to swallow enough to emit a weak "No." Still feeling unsure as to what to do, Sarah made an impatient sound, his grip weakened enough for her to slip to the ground and she made two quick steps back in case he decided to do anything she termed as 'dodgy'.

Seeing her move away from him the man straightened up his clothes and started to ramble, "No, I wouldn't ever, I mean, I never have, really? An old boyfriend? How did? No. I don't. Don't tell me. Just… I need your help. With something. Not that something! Not like that! Just." A deep breathe in "You saw something earlier today didn't you?"

As Sarah comprehended what had spewed from the stranger's mouth, she decided to ignore most of it as the last sentence resonated within her. She didn't know this man, didn't know if he was good or bad. Ron was different, might be an alien from all that she'd seen today or even an undiscovered species and who was this man who wanted to know about the creature? Was he trust worthy? Sure, he looked somewhat welcoming and nice but beneath that Sarah could sense something, something a bit darker, a bit sadder than what was seen upfront. And she'd only known, or in fact seen, Ron for a second or two; the poor thing was alone and scared. All these thoughts ran through her head in rapid succession and she decided to approach the situation differently; she ignored his question. "Who are you? What are you?" she queried, power was knowledge and if she could work out what this person wanted with Ron, she could make her next move.

"I'm the Doctor! Hello." That smile was back, bright and blinding; Sarah nearly winced as the headache from earlier made itself known again.

"And you're an alien? Oooor a man who just has an alien ship? Or are you secretly an actor hired by someone, hitherto unknown to me, to play a stupid, silly, completely irrational prank on me?" All of this was said with a completely blank look on her face, she wanted answers and by-golly she was going to get them.

"Um, the first one. But that's not important, what is important is that you tell me what you saw earlier today because it really would be a big help and you might just save a few lives in the process." Throughout the man's speech, this so-called 'Doctor', his face had gotten serious, this, clearly, was not a laughing matter.

A few lives? This had gotten far more serious than she'd have ever thought or suspected "What is it…" She swallowed dryly and tried again "What is it that you need to know?"

A pleased smile took over his face, gentler than his previous mad grin, which was making it's way across his face again as he plucked something out of his inner jacket pocket "Well! 4 months 2 days and precisely 12 hours and 44 minutes ago the Rag'eshii's royal family from the bazoid quadrent alerted the Shadow Proclomation of their 2-year-old son's disappearance, believed to have been kidnapped from the royal palace, the heir to the throne was gone. Poof! Completely disappeared!" At this the Doctor became more and more animated in his speech, pacing in front of the wide-eyed Sarah. "No one could find anything and so they called me and luckily for me the thing that kidnapped the son emitted a low type of gamma radiation which doubled when they used whatever it was as transportation, my guess is one of those nasty wrist teleports, horrible things, but good for me! Because! They can only travel so far and the most popularised and inhabited planet close enough to jump too was? You guessed it! Earth! So their here, now how did I come to find you? Well, the gamma radiation, previously stated is easily followed with my trusty little sonic" At this he started waving whatever it was that he had snatched from his inner pocket; waving it up and down and around Sarah's face who had so far not blinked once during the Doctor's explanation. "And so I followed the path of radiation, however, imagine my surprise when I came across you, you are emitting tons of the stuff! Loads of it! At first I thought it might be you, even watched you for a bit to find out for myself. Oh don't look at me like that! Anyway it wasn't you, no; you're as human as they come! No, but something IS feeding off of you, replacing whatever they took with that radiation, my guess is to make themselves seem more human. So what I need to know is has there been anything suspicious lately? Anything you've seen or noticed. It's of the utmost importance." He drifted off into silence as he thought over his newest conclusion while Sarah had stopped blinking near the beginning of the speech, she found herself scarcely able to breath, in face, she didn't think she was breathing at all. Safe in the knowledge that purple was never her colour, she deigned herself to breathe and as she brought in a new lungful of air her brain zoomed into work going over all the relevant things she'd heard and was able to answer, leaving the other more confusing and certainly more frightening things to when she could process them.

She thought she'd start with an introduction, no need to be rude after all; "My names Sarah." A beat of silence while he looked at her as if she had just sprouted another head. "And he's called Ron. Oh, well, he's not really called Ron I guess, it's just what I named him and I didn't see him for long but he was under my desk and eating a rat and I went to touch him, y'know, because he looked so frightened and he needed a hug and everyone has always told me that I give great hugs but then a bang sounded from outside and he went crazy, y'know, just bouncing around the sides of my desk and I tried to help him and get him calmed down but then it happened again and he screamed so loud that I thought my brain would pop out." A deep breath in, "So I covered my ears and by the time I looked up he was escaping through the ventilation grate." The last sentence was spoken sedately as if she hadn't just talked 24 miles an hour and attempted to break the speaking-to-light ratio.

The Doctor had a somewhat gob-smacked expression on his face as he mouthed the word 'Ron' then shook his head "Well, Sarah, lovely to meet you." For a minute there Sarah thought he might go for a handshake and then a hug, until he finally settled on an awkward pat on the shoulder.