The Doctor held up a book triumphantly. "Look at that."

Donna looked at the cover. It was the book Death in the Clouds by Agatha Christie, with a picture of a giant wasp on the front. "She did remember," she said in awe.

"Somewhere in the back of her mind, it all lingered. And that's not all. Look at the copyright page," he said, handing it to Donna.

She opened the book, and her eyes widened. "Facsimile edition," she read out. "Published in the year…five billion?"

"People never stop reading it," the Doctor told her, a small smile on his face. "She is the best-selling novelist of all time."

Donna sighed. "But she never knew."

"Well, no one knows how they're going to be remembered. All you can do is hope for the best. Maybe that's what kept her writing." He paused, growing more serious. "Same thing keeps me travelling."

Donna looked up at him, and he grinned. "Onwards?"

"Onwards," she agreed, his smile reflected in her face.

Together, they stood up and pulled a lever on the console, staring up at the time rotor; then they looked at each other and grinned.

Suddenly, over the noise of the time rotor, Donna heard a sound coming from behind her, not so much noise as the absence of noise. She thought it was similar to white noise, and turned around in time to see a bright white light, inexplicably glowing in the middle of the air.

Unable to speak, she tapped the Doctor on the shoulder. He turned around in time to see the light expand until it became too bright to look at, taking over the control room. The light and the white noise too over their senses until it was too much to bear, and everything went black.

~o0o~

Donna opened her eyes to find herself lying on her back in a field of grass, with trees towering above her. She jerked upright, and felt dizzy for a moment, causing her to pause and out a hand to her head.

When the moment was over, Donna looked around, trying to work out where she was. She seemed to be in a park, or possibly a green. There were children kicking a ball around in the distance, but no sign of the Doctor or even the TARDIS.

Frowning, Donna pulled a few blades of grass out of the ground and smelled them. They smelled like Earth, which was a good sign for someone who could wake up anywhere in the universe.

She stretched and stood up, noting as she did so that despite waking up on the ground, she didn't seem to be stiff at all. In fact, she felt better than she had in ages.

Looking down, Donna saw that she was wearing a T-shirt with yoga shorts, the type people wore when they went jogging (not that she would be seen dead jogging, of course). On the ground next to her lay an iPod and a pair of sunglasses. Maybe I was jogging, she thought to herself, then shook her head. Surely she would remember that.

There was still no sign of the Doctor, so Donna picked up the iPod and began to walk around the perimeter of the park in the hopes of finding something, anything, to tell her where she was. After a minute, she found a sign that proudly proclaimed that she was in a Richmond Green, in London. Well, she thought, could be worse. At least I'm somewhere near to home. But where the bloody hell is that Doctor?

For a horrible moment, Donna had a thought that maybe, just maybe, the Doctor had grown tired of her and chucked her out of the TARDIS. But she shook her head furiously to dissipate that idea. No way. He'd never do that.

Probably.

Donna decided that staying in this park was getting her nowhere. She turned on the iPod (deciding that whoever it belonged to had good taste in music) and set off, not heading for anywhere in particular, just seeing where she would end up.

Presently she found herself walking along a cobbled lane alongside the River Thames. She stopped for a few moments and leaned on the railing by the river, looking out across the water to the trees opposite.

There were a few boats on the water, and the man sailing one of them waved to Donna. She nodded back at him. He looked like her grandfather, she reflected with a small smile.

Donna sighed and turned around, resting her back on the railing and looking around. She saw a pub around the corner, the White Cross. Oh, she thought, I'd give anything for a drink right now.

Pushing off from the railing, she headed towards the brick pub, making a mental note to ask inside if anybody knew the way to Chiswick.

~o0o~

Half an hour later, Donna was striding along the streets of Chiswick when she noticed that something was wrong.

Every time she went home, there were some things that were different, of course, but she was used to that. But this time, there seemed to be too many things that were different. The tree on the corner, where Pamela lived, was much larger than she remembered; the large tree in old Tessa's garden was completely gone, even though she loved that tree, and had watered it every day for forty years.

Furthermore, Donna didn't recognise any of the people she saw in the streets, even in her own. She approached her house with some trepidation, for even though she was certain she was in the right street she did not recognise anything. Even the car in her own driveway was a strange car. Surely Mum wouldn't have bought a new car, would she? They're always strapped for cash, her and Gramps.

Donna was seized with a sudden feeling of fear as she reached the front door and raised one hand to knock. She paused and took a breath, then knocked twice.

A few moments later, the door flew open and a strange woman looked out at Donna. She had brown hair that was messily tied into a bun. "Can I help you?"

Donna blinked, and glanced behind the woman into the hallway. A child's pushchair stood by the stairs, surrounded by various toys and games. "Uh…" Donna was lost for words.

The woman frowned. "You all right there?" she asked Donna.

Donna shook her head. "No. Yeah, I'm fine. I think." She cleared her throat. "I, er, think I may have the wrong house," she explained. "Do you know where I can find a woman called Sylvia?"

"Do you mean Sylvia Noble?"

"Yes!" Donna was relieved. "Do you know where I can find her?"

The woman shrugged. "No idea, sorry. I don't even know who she is, but we get people asking for her occasionally. Usually students." She smiled apologetically. "Anything I can help you with?"

"No…I'll be fine." Donna smiled and walked away from the house, feeling slightly dazed. It was her house, she was certain. So why was a stranger living there? Where was her family?

Suddenly she was struck with an idea. Heading to the nearest telephone box, she dialled her mother's mobile number. She was met with a notification that the number did not exist. Frowning, Donna dialled again, in case she had misdialled, only to be met by the same sound. She stopped and took a deep breath, beginning to panic now.

Closing her eyes and praying, Donna crossed her fingers and dialled her grandfather's mobile number. Once again, she was told that the mobile number did not exist.

Lowering the phone from her ear slowly, Donna pressed her forehead to the cool glass oft eh telephone box and closed her eyes. Where the hell was her family? Where was the Doctor? Where was she, for that matter?

~o0o~

It had taken Donna a while to calm down after the revelation that she was completely alone. She had walked around for some time, maybe an hour, probably more, trying to clear her head.

However, this had not proven to be a good method for calming down, as even the streets of London city were unfamiliar to Donna now. The evidence of all the strange things that had happened in London – Royal Hope Hospital, the Racnoss ship, the aliens on Big Ben – was all gone, as if it had never happened. The posters telling people to 'Vote Saxon', which normally flapped uselessly in the wind down alleys and on abandoned shops, were nowhere to be seen. Even the people were strange: the shop owners that Donna would normally chat to, the tramps sitting on the footpaths in their usual places, the teenagers who would graffiti slogans such as 'Bad Wolf', all seemed to have vanished completely, replaced by strangers.

Eventually, Donna had an idea. She popped into a newsagent's shop, avoiding the shop-keeper's eye, and bought a newspaper. She hurried out to the street and looked to the top of the front page, searching for the date.

Friday 22 April, 2011.

Donna let out an involuntary gasp and looked around, realising that she was in the future. Five years in her future. In London's future. She'd been to the future before, of course, but that was always a long time away, and usually a great distance from Earth. This, however, was completely different. She was so close to her time.

Donna began to feel a bit calmer. Perhaps her family had moved house in the five years since she was last year, and her mother had changed her phone number. Perhaps the council had finally gotten rid of the signs of alien invasion, and the graffiti.

There was still a knot in Donna's chest, a niggling feeling that wouldn't go away. Where was the Doctor? Surely he wouldn't abandon her, five years away from her time. Would he?

Rolling up the newspaper, Donna put it under her arm and began to walk. Sylvia Noble didn't believe in being in the telephone book, but she had one sure-fire way of finding her family. Her mother would never move out of London, and if her Gramps was in London, there was one place she would be certain to find him.

Not half an hour later, Donna stood stock-still under the purple sky, staring at the spot on the hill which had been her last hope. The hillside lay empty, the shed old and broken and rundown. It was as if Wilfred Mott had never existed.

Her Gramps would never let it get in that state, not if his life depended on it. His stargazing hobby was his life, in some ways. Something must have happened to him, something awful that didn't even bear thinking about.

Donna closed her eyes and slumped against the ramshackle shed, sliding down the side until she was sitting on the ground. She rested her head back against the rotting wood and gazed up at the darkening sky, the sky that was full of stars, and yet so maddeningly empty. It had been an exhausting day, first finding out that the world as she knew it seemed to be gone, and then realising that her family was similarly unreachable. The knot in her chest that she had had since she woke up, her grown larger and was becoming harder to ignore.

She sat alone on the hillside, watching as the sky turned black and the stars grew brighter. She had lost track of how much time had passed when she closed her eyes and curled up on her side, feeling more alone than she ever had before. Gradually, Donna drifted off to sleep, her eyes red and raw from the loss of everything she knew.

~o0o~

Donna Noble opened her eyes to find herself still alone on the hillside where she had fallen asleep. She sat up quickly, noting as she did so the knot in her chest, as well as faint pangs of hunger. Donna realised that she hadn't eaten anything the previous day, at least after she had woken up in the park with no memory of how she got there.

Donna stretched and stood up. She glanced up once at the cloudy sky, before looking away and beginning to walk down the hill towards the strange city called London.

She arrived in town just as the shops were beginning to open. Donna noticed the enticing smell of frying bacon, and followed her nose to an American-style diner. Not her usual haunt, but today was not a normal day.

Donna ordered her breakfast and took a seat, noticing as she did so that a couple of the customers seemed to be staring at her. Look down at herself, she realised that they probably had a good reason: she wore a rumpled jogging-style outfit, and her hair was probably a mess considering that she had slept on the ground.

A waitress brought Donna her meal, accompanied by strong coffee and a frown. "Don't I know you from somewhere?" she asked Donna.

Donna studied the waitress' face. "I don't think so," she said.

The waitress shook her head. "You look like someone from the telly, I'm sure," she insisted.

"Look, I don't know what you're talking about, but I'm certain we don't know each other," Donna said rather irritably. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to eat my breakfast."

The waitress walked away, affronted. Donna felt bad for a moment, but the feeling dissipated when she began to ravenously attack the sausages in front of her. Glancing up for a moment, she noticed that the other diners were still staring at her. She gave them a look that had them hastily turning their attentions back to their food.

Donna finished her breakfast quickly, and left before anybody else could claim to recognise her. She walked out onto the street and turned left, hurrying along the way she had done the previous day. Today, however, she knew exactly where she was going.

She turned a corner and walked straight into a man going in the other direction. "Sorry," she muttered.

"It's alright," he replied in an unfamiliar Scottish accent.

Normally Donna would have walked away without a second glance, but something possessed her to stop and look twice at the man she had nearly run over. And when she did, she gasped and took an involuntary step backwards. "D- Doctor?" she stammered out.

For indeed, standing in front of her was a man who looked very much like the Doctor, yet…different. His hair was not as unruly, and he looked as if he hadn't shaved for a while. He was wearing a shirt and black trousers, a far cry from his usual suit and long coat. Still, he had the same face as the Doctor, the same sparkling eyes. And a Scottish accent.

The Doctor-like man did a double take also. "Donna?" he said incredulously. "You look…different."

Donna was so relieved to see a familiar face, she could have cried. As it was, she threw her arms around him in a tight hug. "You would not believe the day I'm having!" she exclaimed. "First I wake up in a park, then my family are disappeared – gone! Nowhere to be found. And nothing around here is normal, and to top it off people keep staring at me as if I'm some sort of freak show, and-"

The Doctor held up a hand and cut her off. "You think you've got problems?" he asked her. "Look at me! I'm Scottish!"