July 2: These are the frequently asked questions.
I am not entirely pleased with this, but I am pleased with the premise. /o\ Thanks to
twobit for laughing when I showed her some of this. No spoilers beyond "Donna is the current companion" and "Turlough used to be a companion but now he lives on his home planet" and "they are both redheads."
"Where are we now, Doctor?" asked Donna.
"Oh, I dunno. The locational detector is on the fritz again." The Doctor patted the central control column of the TARDIS fondly. "You're annoyed at me again, aren't you, old girl?"
"Do you know when we are?"
"Ah. That. We're somewhere around the beginning of the twenty-first century, although of course I have no idea where we are, so that might not mean anything at all. We'll have to pop out and take a look! Allons-y!"
Donna rolled her eyes and followed the Doctor out of the TARDIS. They seemed to be in some sort of high-tech marketplace, with people shopping all around. The Doctor stopped abruptly, and Donna ran into his back.
"Oi! Skinny! Watch what you're doing!" she exclaimed.
"Er . . ." said the Doctor.
"Honestly, what are you doing, stopping like that?" Donna demanded.
"He saw me," came a voice from a few feet ahead of them. Donna peered around the Doctor and saw a young red-headed man standing in front of them, arms crossed, with an annoyed expression on his face. "And how have you been, Doctor?"
"Er," said the Doctor.
"If you know him," said Donna, stepping forward, "you'd know he's probably spent the entire time since you last saw him running away from things and crying over spilt milk. I'm Donna Noble, by the way. And you are?"
"Turlough," said the young man.
They shook hands. The Doctor looked worried.
"Turlough, it's lovely to see you again!" he exclaimed. "I'm guessing we're on Trion? What have you been up to? How's your brother? Nice place you've got here, I haven't been to Trion since before you people invented spaceflight."
"I see you've not changed that much," said Turlough. "Yes, you're on Trion, Malkon is fine, I've been on the political scene and keeping an eye out for a certain blue box."
"It's lucky you were out here today, then!"
"Lucky?" said Turlough. "No, I put a tracker on the TARDIS before I left." He pulled something square out of his pocket and waved it at the Doctor. "It lets me know whenever you get close to this space/time. I've been waiting for you."
AND THEN I GOT STUCK. :(