"Who are you?" The Doctor stares at him. Sam's a little daunted by the attention.

"Harry Sullivan." That's the name of the man he's leaped into.

"No, you're not."

Pretending to be someone else isn't always easy, so Sam's glad to hear the sound of the Imaging Chamber and the squawk of the handlink that tells him Al is back. "Who else would I be?"

"I don't know, that's why I asked. And I'd like to know how you got on my ship." The Doctor turns to face Al, who goes wide-eyed at the attention.

"You can see me?" Al asks.

"Of course, I can." The Doctor sounds hurt at the suggestion.

"Oh, boy." This is clearly going to be one of those leaps. "I'm Sam Beckett." Al looks horrified, but Sam figures he might as well give it a go.

"The playwright?"

Sam shakes his head. "The quantum physicist." Among other things, but that's what counts at the moment.

The Doctor smiles at him, which just unnerves Sam all the more. "The time traveller. You leap from life to life, fixing what once went wrong."

Sam blinks and looks over to Al, who is hitting the handlink. "Who would I tell?" Al says and he has a point.

"So tell me," the Doctor continues, "what are you here for?"

"I don't know." He does, but it's not something you blurt out. It has to be handled delicately. Especially given that Ziggy can't tell them what the Doctor is feeling or give them very reliable odds.

But the Doctor goes around behind Al and reads the handlink over his shoulder. Al is so used to not being seen that he doesn't move away, just frowns at him.

"Sarah Jane's in love with me?" the Doctor says.

Sam gives Al a look. Al shrugs.

"We'll see about that." And with that, the Doctor wrenches open the door and disappears into the ship.

Sam sighs. Everything that could go wrong on this leap has gone wrong. And now he has to fix it.

"How am I supposed to know that aliens can see me?" Al says in his defense.

Al has a point. Until now they hadn't even known aliens existed. "What are the odds in me succeeding now?" Sam asks, sounding as tired as he suddenly feels. He's going to have to do something different and he has no idea what.

Al hits the handlink a few times before he comes up with an answer he looks shocked to read. "One hundred percent."

"What?" Sam can't believe that.

"That's what it says." Al holds the handlink up so Sam can read it for himself and Al's right, it does say one hundred percent.

Wondering where the Doctor went, Sam tiptoes through the door. And there, just around the corner is the Doctor in the corridor. And he's kissing Sarah Jane.

Sam exchanges a smile with Al. This is the easiest leap he's ever had.

"But their skin is see-through." He does say it quietly, so the aliens won't hear.

"Are an alien's insides really that interesting?" Sarah asks in his ear.

Harry nods. "You see, they're up-side down. Their lungs and heart are towards the bottom of their torso and their intestines are at the top."

"Are you saying what I think you are?" She looks worried.

"If it's that we shouldn't go to their feast in our honour, then yes."

Even the Doctor looks horrified now and it's not long before they're safely inside the TARDIS again.

"Hmm?" The Doctor didn't even look up from the controls.

Sarah sighed and leaned over so he couldn't ignore her. "You told Harry and the Brigadier that we'd be in London five minutes ago. That was half an hour ago." She'd had enough time to get changed. Which would surprise Harry, if he noticed, which was unlikely.

"Travel through the vortex is very tricky. Five minutes can take hours and centuries can take minutes." He grinned at her and moved around her to fiddle with more controls on the other side of the console.

"So how long is it going to take?" She folded her arms and gave him a look. Since he was peering at a readout, it was lost on him.

"Hmm?"

She began to feel like hitting her head against the wall would get more results. "Doctor, are you listening to me?"

Something on the console started beeping and the Doctor hit a button hard to make it stop. "What's that, Sarah?"

"I said, are you listening to me?"

"Of course I am." He sounded hurt and put on a wounded expression, but Sarah wasn't fooled for a moment. "Just because I told the Brigadier we'd be in London five minutes ago doesn't mean I meant we'd go there next. Surely you want to go somewhere more exciting than boring, old London?"

Well, when he put it like that, she was tempted. However... "You did promise we'd go straight there."

"How about a trip to Florana?"

He sounded like a salesman, but she was half afraid he would leave her in London, if she let him take her back there. So she smiled and said, "I'll believe that when I see it."

He grinned. "To Florana!" He flicked a switch with a flourish.

"To Florana," she echoed, already getting excited about going to a new place.

"Oh, it was easy," he said, peeling her away from him. "All I had to do was--"

She cut him off, taking his hands briefly. "I don't care. You saved us, that's all I need to know." She beamed at him and stepped into the TARDIS.

Harry, who was no less grateful, but not so keen on the hugging, caught hold of the Doctor's arm before he could follow Sarah. "I'd like to know, Doctor."

The Doctor grinned at him and tapped the side of his nose.

"Stay down, old girl," a voice whispered in her ear.

Sarah rolled her eyes, conveniently forgetting that she'd come to the same conclusion only a moment ago.

"It's a cinema, Harry," she hissed back.

"Oh." Then his weight was off her, so she stood up and dusted herself down.

From behind her she heard a clunk that was the TARDIS door closing, then the Doctor's voice cut across a quiet moment in the film. "Well, now, didn't I say..." He didn't get to finish his sentence before he was shushed by the people in the seats closest to the police box.

"I don't think this is Scotland, Doctor," Harry pointed out before she could.

"Well, I must admit this wasn't exactly what I expected," the Doctor said, and at least he whispered it this time.

Sarah sighed. Why she'd thought the Doctor would get them to where they were meant to be she didn't know. "We're in a cinema," she told him, just in case he hadn't worked that out for himself.

"On a ship," Harry put in.

Sarah looked over at him. It made sense of the way the floor moved, but why hadn't he said something sooner? "I think we should find the exit," she whispered to them both.

"Good idea, old girl."

Sarah rolled her eyes again, not that it did her much good in here. "Don't call me old girl."

"Ah, there's the exit." The Doctor pointed towards the green illuminated sign on the other side of the cinema from where they stood. He was shushed again, but ignored them to stride across the room, apologising to people on the way. Sarah and Harry hurried in his wake, Harry with a muffled "Ow" as he walked into a row of seats. Sarah decided that was only fair. All the same, she was relived to get through the cinema without doing it herself.

"Now, where do you suppose we are, Harry?" the Doctor asked.

Harry frowned and looked round. From here they could see out of the windows on one side at a sea that looked more brown than Sarah had ever seen on Earth. Or it could have been that the windows were dirty. The only other thing to give them any clues to their location was the corridor they were in and that looked like any old ship as far as Sarah could tell, from her limited experience.

"I don't know," Harry replied. "It's rather hard to say. All oceans look the same when you can't see any land. Don't you know?"

"Of course I do." He slung his scarf over his shoulder and started off down the corridor in a huff.

"Don't antagonise him," Sarah said to Harry as they struggled to keep up with the Doctor.

"Don't antagonise him, I like that. What about him antagonising me?"

Sarah thought that it was quite reasonable asking a sailor where they were when they were clearly at sea, but decided it was probably best to drop the subject. Harry was prevented from saying more when the Doctor stopped suddenly.

"Oh, look, they have a shop! I do like a good gift shop." And then the Doctor was off again, poking at the racks of keyrings, pens and various other tat.

"It would be nice to at least know what planet we're on, at least." Sarah sighed as she leant back against the wall. She hoped they were on Earth as she was worried at the idea that other planets had the sort of tat you got in gift shops. She'd long outgrown the need for brightly-coloured rubbers and oversized pencils, so this one held no charm for her.

"Somewhere in the English Channel, I'd say." Harry had a suspicious-looking glint in his eye.

Sarah frowned. "How do you know that?" He sounded very smug for someone who had professed to know nothing a few minutes ago.

He pointed at a sign. "Cross-channel ferry. All the signs are in English and French."

"Very good, Sherlock." It explained why it looked a little familiar at least - she remembered going from Dover to Calais once when she was younger. "How about the date?"

"A little way into your future," the Doctor put in, passing her a newspaper.

She had a quick look at the date at the top and then realised a short, balding man nearby looked upset, so she smiled and handed the newspaper back. He snatched it off her and stalked off without saying a word. So far it was going typically not well.

"Please don't antagonise the natives, Doctor." Even if the natives were English or French.

"Why don't we go up on deck and get some fresh air?" Harry suggested before the Doctor could answer that and antagonise Sarah.

"Good idea, Harry." The Doctor smiled broadly and Sarah gave a sigh of relief.

~*~*~

Out on deck the Doctor took his yo-yo out. Harry took a deep breath and smiled. "Smell that sea air."

Sarah wasn't convinced about that; it smelt a little like a sewage plant to her. She decided to ignore the Doctor as he probably wanted someone to ask him what he was doing, and she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. He'd tell them eventually. She smiled at Harry instead. "Do you miss it?"

"Now and then." He wondered over to the side to lean against the barrier and peer down at the sea.

"Only now and then," she teased as she followed him, hoping he might admit to more than that, given the expression she'd briefly seen on his face before he'd spoken. However, she forgot all about that when she looked over the side. "What's that?" She pointed at what looked like a few white tentacles appearing out of the water.

"I don't know. I can't think of anything that looks like that that lives in the English Channel." He sounded worried. Sarah couldn't blame him. They never could go anywhere nice without something bad happening.

They both turned to ask the Doctor, who was still playing with his yo-yo with a hurt expression on his face and didn't look up at all. Before they could say anything the ferry gave a sudden lurch. Sarah and Harry were thrown against the railing. Sarah grimaced as the breath was knocked out of her. Harry grabbed her arm, although as he had also lost his footing that wasn't very helpful and it was only her instinctive hold on the railing that prevented them both from falling.

The Doctor slid over to them and peered over the side. "Oh dear," he said, in a masterful understatement.

Sarah turned to look back at the sea and noticed the thing with tentacles had an awful lot of tentacles and it was climbing up the side of the ferry. "What is it, Doctor?" She couldn't tell whether it was something he'd come across before, or he was just as confused as they were.

The ferry tilted even further, as if it were determined never to let the Doctor answer their question, regardless of whether they'd had the chance to ask it. Harry had a worried expression on this face as people who had just picked themselves up were thrown to the floor again. One man screamed as he fell over the side. The scream abruptly cut off as he fell into the tentacled beast. The only noise that came after was a glugging sound.

Sarah put her hand over her mouth and looked away. Harry let go of her and put his arm loosely round her shoulders. She wanted to tell him she was all right, but she couldn't help thinking of just how close the creature was and how she and Harry might have gone the same way, had the railing been less secure where they were standing.

The Doctor's eyes were boggling. "It looks like a Lepas anatifera. They usually eat plankton, though."

By this time it was well out of the water, and it was safe to say there were no plankton on the side of the ferry. Besides, that man had definitely been far bigger than plankton and the creature hadn't even paused. She had another quick look and discovered it was moving up the side of the ferry faster than she thought something that size could move. It was all the tentacles, she supposed. "Um, Doctor. Unless you have a way of sending it back into the sea, I think we'd better get further away from it."

"What, do nothing and let it attack another ship after it's finished with this one?"

He had a point, which meant it would be harder to stop than she thought, but now really wasn't the time or place to debate it. Since the Doctor showed no signs of moving, she grabbed his hand and forced him to run with her, down the stairs and back inside. Not that she thought it would hold the creature off for long, but it was a start.

Once inside and a little safer, Sarah looked around and frowned at what she saw - or rather what shedidn't see. "Where's Harry?" She had been so sure he wanted to be away from it just as much as she did that she'd just assumed he was following.

"Oh, he found someone who'd been knocked out. He was putting them in the recovery position. Although he really needs to be more up-to-date with that," the Doctor replied, idly.

Sarah, feeling guilty for not paying enough attention, just shook her head and started back towards the stairs.

"Where are you going?" the Doctor called after her.

She didn't slow down as she called back, "To get Harry." Rescue might well be a better word, although she hoped that wouldn't be necessary.

"No, you're not, it's far too dangerous." He caught up with her and took hold of her arm.

She was forced to stop and tug her arm out of his grasp. At least he let her, and in return she stayed where she was for the time being. "We can't just leave him there."

"No, of course not," he said as if it had been his idea in the first place. "I'll go."

"What difference does it make?" She was frustrated now at the Doctor treating her like, well, like a girl. She expected this from Harry, not him.

"Because I have a way of stopping it." He grinned at her. She sighed and let him go past her and back out on deck. After he was gone she looked around the room and frowned. The sign on the door had said 'Family Lounge', but now it was full of frightened people cowering in their seats. A baby was crying somewhere near the back. As much as she wanted to reassure them everything would be all right, she didn't have anything concrete, beyond knowing that with the Doctor around, it usually was. Besides, she didn't want to miss out on all the action.

~*~*~

The Doctor turned out to be easy to find, since the deck was empty of people except for him. Sarah hoped that meant Harry was somewhere safer, along with whatever casualties he'd found. The Doctor was leaning over the rail at the creature, holding one arm out and looking pensive.

"Doctor," Sarah called out, and he turned to face her.

He frowned at her. "I thought I told you to stay inside."

She shook her head. "No, you didn't." He might have implied it, but he didn't actually say it. Not that she would have listened anyway. "Do you know how to stop it?"

He straightened his hat on his head with one hand. "I think I can hold it off for a while with the sonic screwdriver."

That explained why his arm was still over the side. Sarah cautiously went closer to find he had the sonic screwdriver in his hand and, although the creature wobbled slightly, it wasn't coming any closer. Which explained why the ferry had stopped tilting so violently. "And then what?" She tried not to sound too worried, since this was all in a day's work these days, but she didn't succeed.

The Doctor smiled at her. "Phosphoric acid."

She frowned. "What?"

"Phosphoric acid is well known for poisoning goose barnacles."

Was that what the Latin term meant? She supposed that now he mentioned it, the tentacles did look a bit like the necks of geese.

"Quickly, Sarah," he added, when she didn't say anything.

Sarah went back downstairs, trying to think of where on a ferry there might be a source of phosphoric acid. The Doctor sounded confident that there would be, but surely there wasn't a science lab on board. The name sounded familiar for some reason, but she couldn't say why. There wasn't time to be delving into the depths of the TARDIS to find the library. She should have asked the Doctor really, but she didn't want to appear ignorant by going back now.

When she ran through the Family Lounge she ignored the shouts in her direction. She had more important things to do and they'd be safe soon enough anyway. She hoped. A few corridors along and somewhere in the vicinity of the shop the Doctor had been so enamoured she ran into Harry. Literally.

"Careful, old girl," he said, offering her a hand up even as he stood himself.

She took it. "The Doctor's holding it off, but it's nearly on him and I need your help."

"Well, I have rather a lot to do here." He waved a hand to indicate the injured people around him that he had somehow managed to collect in one place. Sarah didn't know how he'd done it in the time. He'd even found a first aid box and a stretcher.

"If we don't stop it you'll have more to do," she pointed out. "And you can't be the only doctor on board."

Harry looked torn and Sarah decided the Doctor could wait a little longer. "I'll find one." She went off back the way she came.

She opened the door to the room full of people and seats and shouted, "Is anyone a doctor?"

A young blonde woman stood up. "Me." Sarah wondered at that because she didn't even look old enough to be out of medical school yet. Some of that must have shown on her face because the woman added, "Well, I'm in my final year."

"You'll do," Sarah decided. Besides, she was curious to see what reaction Harry would have to a female doctor. She was pretty enough that he'd probably be flustered, but he was busy enough that he might not notice. "We really need you outside."

The woman nodded. "I'm Catherine," she said, as she followed Sarah's fast walk.

"Sarah," she replied, although now wasn't the best time for introductions.

"Harry," she called, once they were there. "Here's your doctor." She decided not to mention the final year medical student bit.

Sarah didn't have a chance to introduce her, though, because as soon as Harry stood back up the woman dropped to her knees, pulling out a pen light and looking into one of the patients' eyes.

"Um," Harry said.

Sarah bit back a smile. "We're in the future, remember?" she whispered, wondering if he was complaining about Catherine's technique and hoping it wasn't about her gender because otherwise he'd have Sarah to answer to.

Harry sighed. "All right. What do you need?"

"Phosphoric acid," Sarah said, triumphantly.

"Why on earth didn't you say before?"

She gave him a look because she couldn't see any way she was in the wrong here. "Where are we going to get that from on a ferry?"

"It's in soft drinks."

Sarah's mouth fell open. Then she realised Harry had already run off, probably towards the bar. She hadn't known that, but she wondered if the Doctor did and had assumed she had too. Or just hoped she'd magic a source of it out of thin air. Now she came to think of it, she'd seen a variety of drinks in the TARDIS kitchen, but it was hard to think clearly when your best friend looked as if he was about to be eaten.

Fortunately, there was no one behind the bar to explain themselves to. The crew probably had more important things to do than serve drinks and no one was asking for any. Harry was already pulling cans out of one of the fridges and he passed her a load, saying, "Here." They were cold and slippery, but she had them up to her chin before he gathered some in his arms, emptying the small fridge.

It was difficult to run with their loads, so a few cans escaped from each of them and Sarah nearly tripped over Harry's spills. They got confused looks from everyone they passed, which helped when Harry shouted for them to open the door. Although they'd probably have done it anyway - it wasn't a tone of voice she'd heard on Harry before and she almost itched to follow his orders too.

Once they made it back onto the deck, the Doctor wasn't where Sarah had left him. She could only think the worst when she saw the ripped railing where he had been standing. "Oh, no!" She nearly dropped her armful of cans. "The Doctor was standing right there." She stared at the spot where he had been.

"I'm sure he's fine. He always is."

Sarah swallowed and nodded, but she was less sure about that than Harry sounded.

"First we need to deal with the creature. Then we can worry about the Doctor."

Knowing he was right, Sarah pulled herself together. The goose barnacle wasn't hard to track, given the trail of destruction it had left in its wake. Along with the sea water, which was definitely brown. It had gone across the deck, going higher all the time, which didn't make sense to Sarah, but at least it meant the people she'd left were still safe, at least for now.

"Sarah! Harry!" They looked up to find the Doctor perched on the top of the driver's cabin. It probably wasn't called that, Sarah thought, but she'd never really needed to look at a ferry this closely before. The goose barnacle wasn't far below him and a few of the tentacles nearly made contact with the end of his scarf.

"Doctor," Harry called back. "Do you need any of these?"

"Yes, please, Harry."

He must have been worried, Sarah thought, given that his answer to such an obvious question hadn't been sarcastic at all. Harry dropped most of his armful of cans, but when he threw a couple to the Doctor he did at least have perfect aim, so Sarah wasn't going to fault him for the cans rolling around their feet.

The Doctor opened one of the cans and threw one onto the goose barnacle. It immediately writhed and let go of the wall with most of its tentacles. The second can made it fall to the deck with a squelch. It wasn't dead, though, because it still slithered and Sarah took an involuntary step backwards when it headed towards her. Harry plucked a can from her arms, opened it and threw it at the goose barnacle. She took a deep breath and held her ground. Although that turned out to be difficult once a couple more cans hit it and it waved its tentacles even more. The ferry tilted further and Sarah fell over with an "Oof," and dropped the rest of her cans as she put her hands out to break her fall.

From here, however, she could easily pick up the cans rolling around. Harry had managed to keep his feet, so she kept passing him cans and he kept throwing them like a production line. Behind the goose barnacle she could see the Doctor making his way down from his perch, but the creature was between them and he had no cans.

The writhing gradually slowed down and stopped, then the goose barnacle started frothing. Sarah, worried that it might explode, quickly got up, but the Doctor seemed unconcerned and inspected it.

"Don't get too close, Doctor," Harry warned him. He seemed just as happy as Sarah to keep his distance.

"Oh, it's perfectly safe. Just a common or garden goose barnacle, mutated by the pollution in the sea."

Sarah frowned. She'd heard of mutations caused by radiation and such like, but turning a harmless creature into a cold-blooded monster sounded more like something that belonged in a book like Frankenstein. "There's not that much, surely?"

"We're in the future, Sarah, remember?" he called back.

She had remembered, especially given that the sea wasn't a normal colour, as much as its proximity made Harry happy. She worried a little about what had been going on in the world and said nothing.

"How about a drink?" The Doctor grinned at them.

"Shouldn't we do something about the goose barnacle?" Sarah pointed to it.

The Doctor shook his head. "Nothing we can do until we reach land."

"And how long's that?"

It was Harry who answered. "I don't think it'll be very long at all."

Sarah turned to see where he was looking and saw the coast of France. Or was it England? It all looked the same from this distance.

"Right, then, Harry, off you go."

Harry frowned at the Doctor. "Where?"

"Well, to drive the boat, of course," he said, as if everyone should automatically know what he was talking about, which was quite often untrue.

He shook his head. "I don't know how to steer a ferry. Why can't the captain do it?"

"He's dead. The goose barnacle ate him."

Sarah bit her lip wondering how close the Doctor had come to being eaten and just how many other people had been.

"And you're a sailor, aren't you?" the Doctor continued.

"Yes, but I'm a doctor, not a ferry captain. I wouldn't know where to start."

"Neither do I. So perhaps we'll just crash instead." The Doctor grinned.

Harry sighed.

"Maybe you should have a look and see if there's anything you can do," Sarah suggested, trying to appease both of them since they did need someone to drive and the Doctor seemed unlikely to back down.

"All right," Harry said. He didn't sound happy about it, but he headed up there anyway.

"Right, well, let's go and have that drink, shall we?" The Doctor smiled at Sarah.

"Actually, I think I might see if I can help Harry," she said apologetically. She was feeling a bit guilty about leaving him alone up there if he really didn't know what to do. To say nothing of how she'd treated him the whole time since they landed here.

The Doctor gave her a look and then shrugged. "Off you go then."

She did, and when she got up into the cabin she found Harry frowning at the controls. There were so many buttons and switches and dials and read-outs that she wasn't surprised.

"Any ideas?" she asked him.

"Just one. I don't dare touch any of these in case it doesn't do what I think it will. But the radio I can operate." He smiled at her and reached for the radio. The conversation that followed involved a lot of jargon and an explanation of what had happened that the person on the other end couldn't make sense of, which didn't surprise Sarah. If she hadn't seen it with her own eyes she might not have believed it. At last Harry signed off and smiled at her again.

"So what's happening?" It had almost been like they'd been speaking a different language and she hadn't been able to make head or tail of most of the conversation.

"They're sending a pilot out to guide the ferry into port."

"Oh, that's clever." Sarah did feel much better that someone who knew what they were doing would be in charge of not crashing into the coast.

He looked a little hurt. "Try not to sound too surprised."

"Sorry." For all she knew Harry would be a perfectly good driver, she just wouldn't want to bet her life on it.

"He knows how to operate the controls and where to go. Which is a lot more than I know," he pointed out.

"The Doctor wouldn't have thought of that," she said, trying to atone for her earlier reaction. "He'd have just touched everything and ended up getting us into trouble. Again."

Harry smiled. "He does have a tendency to do that."

Sarah smiled back. "And then blame us." The coastline loomed nearer and Sarah tried not to show Harry how worried she was about that. Presumably the pilot would show up in time, but there was no way to guarantee that. What if Harry had called him too late?

She clearly hadn't been doing well at hiding her feelings, or else Harry was thinking the same thing, because he pointed at a small boat coming towards them. "There's the pilot."

"Oh, good," she breathed. And then realised how that sounded. "I wasn't worried."

"No, of course not," he said in mock agreement.

She punched him in the arm. He pretended it had hurt.

The pilot, when he arrived, spoke French very fast, which neither Sarah nor Harry understood. But it did at least tell Sarah roughly where they were. In the grand scheme of the things, the French coastline on Earth was really quite specific.

Fortunately, the pilot didn't seem to care that neither of them answered him and went about doing his job, guiding the ferry into port. Sarah wondered if they should leave him to it, but Harry made no move to go - he was too busy watching the pilot work - and as much as she worried what the Doctor was doing she knew he wouldn't leave without them, so she didn't leave Harry, in a show of support. Especially as she'd been particularly unsupportive up until now.

When they arrived, the pilot told them something in French that Sarah didn't have a hope of catching, then left.

"I did French at school," Sarah said, "but all I can tell you about what he said was that it was French. Probably."

"School was a long time ago," Harry agreed.

"We might not know the language but I think we've earned ourselves a trip to France. What do you think?" Sarah smiled, hoping he'd agree. It would be nice to do something pleasant and non-life threatening while they were here. Besides, it had been a while since she'd last been to France.

"I think you might be right, old girl."

"Don't call me old girl."

Even so, she was happy enough to follow all the other people leaving the ferry for the terminal and dry land at last. Even if the ferry had evened out at the end she was glad to be on solid ground that wouldn't move beneath her feet. Everyone was chattering about what had happened, although none of them really knew. Sarah took Harry's arm and grinned up at him. Harry grinned back, both of them sharing the secret now they were safe and it was all over.

Their grins disappeared quickly, though, when they reached the front of the queue and a man at a desk who asked for their passports. Harry looked at Sarah in horror, but she couldn't think of anything. There wasn't going to be a good excuse for being on a ferry where people had been injured and died and not having a passport. As much as she wanted to see some of France, she'd much rather it wasn't from a jail cell.

At their hesitation the man at passport control sat up straighter and said something into a walkie-talkie. Sarah turned round, wondering if they'd be able to make a run for it, back to the ferry, but the gates were shut. She was starting to feel slightly panicky when she heard the welcome noise of the TARDIS landing.

The Doctor popped his head out of the door and said, "Would anyone like a lift?" with a big grin on his face.

"Doctor!" Relieved, Sarah ran over to him, Harry right behind her. "Where have you been?"

"Oh, just had a mutated Lepas anatifera to deal with. You know how it is."

"Oh, I do," she agreed and they stepped inside to welcome safety, free from the wrath of the French border officials.

Note: Goose barnacles eat plankton and attach themselves to ships in the ocean. Not normally found around England or France, but one washed up recently on a beach in Wales.

"I don't know. I rather think I might make something up on the spot." He gave her a wide, toothy grin.

Sarah smiled back and shook her head. By now she knew better than to take his words at face value and he was probably already thinking about what he needed to say to the Raagdal Tribe, who lived on the other side of the lake. But he liked to make people think he was more brilliant than he was and could talk his way through a delicate negotiation with no preparation.

They had been on their way to Scotland to answer the Brigadier's call and had somehow accidentally landed here. The aliens they'd come across had a morbid fear of something they called Cyclaus that the tribe who lived on the other side of the lake had set on them. Upon questioning it turned out none of them had ever actually seen it, whatever it was. However, it had meant no contact with the other tribe that shared this land and they were suffering from the lack of one particular nutrient in their food. Which was only found on the other side of the lake, of course.

The boat had come from the TARDIS, although goodness knows what the Doctor was doing with it in there. He sat down at one end and pulled his hat down over his eyes, thereby confirming Sarah's suspicions. Harry stood easily in the boat and she was only too happy to take his outstretched hand. Since she couldn't swim she wasn't entirely sure about there only being a small amount of wood between her and a lake of indeterminate depth.

The Doctor didn't appear to be paying any attention, so she said, "I'll help row."

Harry shook his head and only let go of her hand once she was seated at the other end of the boat from the Doctor. "I used to row at university," he said. "I'm quite looking forward to getting some practise in."

As she didn't know how to row, she couldn't really complain about that. Besides, Harry was off already and she wasn't at all sure it was a good idea to try and grab an oar from him. It was quite nice, she had to admit, to watch him work. She wondered what else he did to keep fit because those muscles couldn't have come from nowhere.

The trip across the lake was pleasant, if silent, until they neared the shore and Sarah could see the aliens on the other side. They also had four arms, and the only thing she could see that was different about these ones was that they lived on the opposite side of the lake from the tribe they'd landed among. It didn't surprise her, though. She rather suspected it was the usual case of a misunderstanding that would be easily cleared up. Assuming the Doctor didn't annoy them, of course. "I can see them," she said, softly, in case her voice carried.

The Doctor twisted round to look. "Aha!" Now she really was sure he'd been considering what to say, because he stood up, which rocked the boat more than Harry's rowing had. Sarah grabbed onto the side and Harry gave her a reassuring smile, although she didn't feel any more relaxed about it. The Doctor never got a word out because as soon as he spread his arms for a grand beginning something that looked distinctly like a giant frog made a sudden appearance in the water next to them.

Shocked, Sarah screamed. Harry jumped, lost an oar and grabbed her arm. The upshot of which was the Doctor losing his footing. In response, the boat rocked from one side to the other and the next thing Sarah knew she was trying to breathe in lake water. Fortunately, Harry was still holding onto her and blindly, she grabbed at him. As soon as she had, her head was above water once again and she breathed in big gulps of air.

"All right, Sarah?" he asked, but he was looking around him, not at her.

"I can't swim." She felt slightly safer now she had a firm grip on something, but still just as scared of drowning.

"Right, then." He twisted round in her grip and they ended up so her back was to his. "Keep still and I'll have you out of here in a jiffy."

She nodded and then Harry had her on her back, with him pulling her along. She concentrated on the sky and clouds overhead, which were the same shades of blue and white that were found on Earth. Although usually it was the sky that was blue and the clouds white. "I really must learn to swim," she said to him, mostly just for something to say. He just grunted in response and she kept quiet after that, guessing he was probably working hard.

When his grip on her changed she almost panicked, but he said, "You should be able to stand up now."

She didn't let go of him until her feet found the ground and then the water was up to her chest. Her nerves were still shot away, though, and she only let go of him reluctantly.

"Get out of the water before you freeze," he said. "I'm going back for the Doctor."

"What?"

Harry was already swimming back to where the boat bobbed along on the lake before he could answer her question. The Doctor was nowhere to be seen. Sarah had just assumed he'd swum for the side while Harry was helping her. Surely he'd have learnt to swim at some point in his lives?

She stayed where she was, worrying, and frustrated at not being able to do anything to help as she watched Harry dive under the water. His black socks were the last thing of him she saw and she held her breath waiting for him to come up again.

It was only when she was beginning to need to breathe out that at last she saw him again, and with the Doctor, she was relieved to see. Only now did she start wading out of the water and by the time Harry was back with the Doctor she was sitting shivering on the bank. The aliens had disappeared. She hadn't seen them go and she wondered if the appearance of the giant frog had something to do with it.

From here she could see the Doctor was unconscious, so she rushed back into the lake to help Harry pull him out. Once the Doctor was lying on his back on the bank, Harry bent over him and Sarah noticed he wasn't breathing. Although it was hard to tell with the Doctor: he didn't have a respiratory system quite like everyone else. It was enough to prompt Harry into action, though, because he started on what Sarah recognised as CPR, even if she didn't know enough to do it herself.

As she watched, she had one hand to her mouth, not noticing the smell of her wet sleeve and willing the Doctor to just hurry up and breathe. If he wasn't breathing and his hearts weren't beating then he was technically dead, wasn't he? They needed him to negotiate with these aliens and to get them home: she didn't have enough confidence to work the TARDIS without something going wrong. But more than that he was her friend and she didn't know what she'd do if he died. It was hard to swallow past the lump in her throat just considering it. So she tried to stop thinking and instead counted along with Harry as he pressed on the Doctor's chest.

Then, all of a sudden, just as Harry was giving the Doctor his two breaths, the Doctor drew in one of his own. Harry quickly turned him on his side and he coughed lake water onto the ground. He had barely stopped when he said, "Why, Harry, I never knew you felt that way for me," with a big grin on his face as if nothing had happened at all.

"Oh, Doctor." Sarah rushed forward from where she'd been sat to take hold of the Doctor's hand and reassure herself he was still there. "We weren't sure you were going to make it."

"Hello, Sarah Jane," he replied, then blinked. "Me, die? That would be an altogether too frivolous thing to do. Why, I've barely lived. I'm still on my first millennium, you know."

Sarah laughed tightly, relieved but not really amused by his remark.

The Doctor was already sitting up and looking round. "Well, we're on the right side of the lake, at least. Let's go and find the Raagdal Tribe, and then on to Scotland and the Brigadier!"

"You should take it easy," Harry said, nevertheless helping the Doctor up. "That was a nasty crack on your head, I don't mind telling you."

Now it made sense. The Doctor must have hit his head on the boat as it went over and they fell in the lake.

The Doctor waved a hand, gathered up his scarf and started walking, wringing it out as he went.

"He will be all right, won't he?" Sarah asked Harry as she took his hand up.

Harry looked towards where the Doctor was striding away and sighed. "Nothing wrong with the old chap."

However, he wasn't quite concentrating on what he was doing and instead of helping her up, she brought him down on top of her.

"Sorry, old girl," he said, moving away quickly and not catching her eye.

"Harry." She caught at his arm. "Why don't you wait here? You deserve a rest."

He looked toward the Doctor again, but by this time he was already disappearing into the distance. Although they could still hear his booming voice calling out to the Raagdal Tribe. "Jolly good idea," Harry said, settling down.

Sarah shifted over next to him, not quite up for a run just yet, and she was worried about Harry now. Her hair was still dripping everywhere and she started wringing it out.

Harry took off his blazer and made a face at it. "You should have said you couldn't swim. We'd have left you on the other side of the lake."

"Because you would have left me on the other side of the lake." Which was a pretty good reason, she thought. "But if I hadn't been there the Doctor wouldn't have almost died." She bit her lip.

He shook his head. "I don't think a few minutes would have made any difference. Maybe if he'd been a human." He shrugged. "No harm done anyway."

"What are you two doing sitting around?"

Startled, Sarah jumped up. "Done already, Doctor?" she asked, incredulously.

He grinned. "And I have a new boat. Goes with the TARDIS nicely, don't you think?"

The aliens were carrying a boat that was a little bigger than the one that now bobbed along in the middle of the lake. This one was blue.

She rolled her eyes. "Let's go home."

"It's been quite enough excitement for one day," Harry agreed.

On the way back, with a few of the aliens in the boat with them, Harry let her take one oar. Although given the way he pressed close to her, Sarah suspected it was mainly because he was afraid he'd have to rescue her again. She certainly had no intention of giving him the chance. Besides, she was shivering now it was all over and the adrenalin had worn off. She didn't fancy another dip, except in a hot bath.

"What did you say to them?" she asked the Doctor to take her mind off it. She couldn't think what he could have said to make them agree that fast.

"Well, it turns out that our friends here are just as scared of the Giant Frog as you are."

Sarah glared at him but he carried on regardless.

"Apparently, it's an ill omen and unless they meet with the other tribe they'll all die." He leaned closer and lowered his voice. "Although they also needed a nutrient that's only found on the other side of the lake so it was all quite amicable really."

She sighed. "At least the frog was good for something other than nearly getting us all killed." She would have preferred an ordinary diplomatic solution with no lives in danger, though.

"If you're going to help row, old girl, I'd really rather prefer it if you did your bit."

While the Doctor was talking she had got distracted and forgotten what she was supposed to be doing. "Oh, sorry." The rowing itself was not getting any easier, though, and her arms grew more tired with every stroke. Not that she was going to tell Harry that. But by the time they were safely back on dry land she was yawning.

"I think we all need a rest before we get to Scotland," Harry suggested.

"What's that?" The Doctor turned from offering jelly babies to various aliens. "Oh, you go ahead. I'll just stay and chat with these lovely chaps here."

Sarah smiled and shook her head. Sometimes the Doctor could just be so incorrigible, but she wouldn't want him any other way. She took the arm Harry offered her, although his sleeve was just as wet as hers. "You were quite the hero today, rescuing both of us."

He ducked his head, but she could see he'd gone red.

Although she meant it, she didn't say anything more on the topic. Except, when they stopped to open the TARDIS door, and Harry held it for her, she reached up and kissed him on the cheek.

Note: Cyclorana australis is commonly called the Northern Snapping Frog or Giant Frog

It didn't matter though because they were all the same man and all knew exactly what she liked. Since she liked them all and had found that in pairs was twice as good, encountering ten of him at once increased her enjoyment exponentially. She didn't think she'd be getting up for a week.

"Hey, you started without me!"

Sarah was startled for a moment at the intrusion of a female voice, until she looked up and realised who she was.

"That's because we don't want you here," the Doctor said, "only one woman allowed, and that's Sarah."

"You don't want the competition, I see."

"No!" Sarah called out, stopping her from leaving. "I'd quite like you here." She grinned and the Doctor joined the other Doctors with her and they all had a very good time.

"It's here, Doctor," Sarah replied, coming into the console room so he could see she was wearing his long, black coat, all buttoned up.

"Why did I put it there, I wonder? Oh, well, you can take it off now."

"Okay." She did so and revealed she was not wearing anything underneath.

"Oh, I remember now."

"Do you want me to put it back on again?"

"No, I don't think that will be necessary."

The Doctor had far better uses for it, although they may not have been the ones intended by the manufacturers.