This is a collab story that grew from a single comment on a forum to a multi-chapter adventure. It's written with the help of the marvelous Time Lords and Ladies over at the Official Time Lord Registry. This story is dedicated to the memory of their email inboxes. :P

If you like, please leave a review on your way out. All of us over at the Registry would really appreciate it. ^^

Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who. The credit for the ideas in this story is shared by myself and my fellow Whovians on the forum.

Chapter One

Spain had been a waste of time. Well, maybe not a complete waste of time, she had to admit, since the scuba diving had been amazing, but the point was that she hadn't been able to find what she had been looking for.

The blue box had been nowhere in sight.

She supposed that getting her hopes up had been reckless on her part. After all, what were the chances that her winning a round-trip ticket to Spain would coincide with a sighting of a tall, skinny time-travelling alien man? Slim, she guessed. Very slim. Still, she hadn't been able to avoid a tiny glimmer of hope that had welled up within her.

Maybe she'd hoped fate would intervene. In the end, it hadn't. And she was on her way home to no job, no husband and no spaceman.

She didn't realize how exhausted she was until she collapsed into the seat on the airplane next to a quiet man who smelled vaguely of garlic and began to fall asleep.

What she didn't know as she snored through the airline safety regulations presentation was that, on the other side of the airport, a twenty-seven year old woman had just boarded a plane heading to England. Her intended destination, however, was Paris, and the ticket in her hand had been intended for one Donna Noble. That same Donna Noble, in fact, who had in her possession the ticket that should have been in the hands of the twenty-seven year old French woman.

"We'll be touching down in Paris, France in about two hours."

The words were still echoing in her head as a cascade of French and English words poured over her, none of them registering in her mind.

Paris.

Paris.

That hadn't been part of her travel plans. Not that she had any qualms about going to France, but she could have sworn that he itinerary had dictated that she go home today. She waved down a passing flight attendant.

"Excuse me," she said, eyebrows furrowing in confusion and a slight nagging sense of worry. "But...did he just say 'Paris'?" The flight attendant let out a polite chuckle.

"Of course he did," she said. "Is there some sort of problem?"

"No, I just...well actually yeah...See, I'm supposed to be going to England." She was trying to keep her tone amiable, but it was difficult considering the flight attendant's constant plastic-looking smile was beginning to grate on her nerves the same way that waiters wearing vests covered in colorful buttons did.

"This plane is headed for Paris, France. If you wanted to go to England then you should have bought an airline ticket that took you there." Donna huffed. Of course she would manage to find the flight attendant who not only had a sickly sweet painted on smile, but also had a taste for sarcasm. She was tempted to think of a smart comeback, but her need to get answers and resolve her worry won over in the end.

"I did have a ticket to go to England. I do."

"Ma'am, you'll just have to take it up with the airline when we land." The woman began to walk away down the aisle, but Donna felt her temper flare, and she stood up.

"Hold on one sodding second!" she called. The flight attendant turned with a badly-obscured roll of her eyes. "I want to talk to someone else, you hear me? Someone who can actually do something useful!"

"Ma'am, please take your seat." People were staring, looking uneasy. Donna didn't much care.

"I won't take my seat! I'm on a plane heading in the wrong direction!"

"Unless you expect us to turn the plane around-"

"Well why the bloody hell can't you? You can steer this thing, right?"

"Ma'am, take your seat!" The flight attendant's voice was stern and left no room for negotiations. Donna huffed and sat down slowly, feeling the eyes of the other passengers begin to wander away from her.

"Wrong bloody plane..." she muttered as she watched the flight attendant stalk down the aisle. "Put me on the wrong bloody plane...What am I supposed to do, eh? Just spend an impromptu weekend in Paris? They'll be paying for my ticket home if it's the last thing I do..." She turned to the man sitting next to her, who was looking at her strangely, somewhat cautiously, as if she had a bomb on her that could explode if he glanced at her the wrong way.

"What are you looking at?" she spat. He quickly turned back to his magazine.

Donna sat up and glanced down the aisle again, but the flight attendant had disappeared. Just as well, she thought. Though she was going to make sure to flag her down again the next time she passed. The least she could do was make herself useful and get her a drink. Something strong.

"So where are you headed, mate?" Donna slurred about an hour later to the less-than-pleased man who was sitting beside her trying to concentrate on his magazine. His face twisted into a scowl and he buried his nose deeper into the pages, as if the fend away the strong scent of alcohol on her breath.

"Oi, I asked you a question!" The man sighed.

"Paris," he said tersely in a thick French accent.

"Well I was headed to London...or at least I was supposed to be headed to London. But somebody-" She pushed herself up out of the seat and shot a very poignant glare at the flight attendant down the row. "put me on the wrong bloody plane, and now I'm headed to Pehr-eez too."

The man huffed and ignored her. Donna carried on without batting an eye.

"Guess it's not all bad. I mean who doesn't want to go to Paris, right? And at least I remember some of my high school French classes, am I right?"

"You speak French?" asked the man, somewhat disbelievingly.

"Bee-ahn sewer, jay parlay frahn-sez!" Donna replied, cackling as she did and taking another hardy sip of her drink. The Frenchman recoiled as if he'd just noticed some intolerable odor and tried to turn away from her.

"Jay mah-pellay Donna Noble."

"Ma'am?" asked the flight attendant as she came swishing down the aisle, placing a hand on Donna's shoulder. "If you could keep your voice down..."

"Maybe I could if I hadn't been put on the wrong bloody plane, missy!" The flight attendant's expression turned sour.

"Ma'am, you're disturbing the other passengers. If you don't calm down-"

"What are you gonna do? Stuff me in the overhead luggage compartment?"

"Ma'am, please-"

Donna turned to the man sitting next to her and asked, very loudly, "Oi, how do you say 'Piss off' in French?"

A few hours later, Donna found herself in a small cafe, alone at a table next to a large bay window. Through it she could see people milling about, smiling, laughing, talking as they strolled past. She ignored them and chewed on a piece of warm bread. The basket before her was nearly empty. It was her second basket, in fact.

A waiter approached her, and before a single word could come out of his mouth, she spat, "Still thinkin'!" and watched him leave with a roll of his eyes as she went back to her bread.

She was in some kind of sticky situation for sure. She'd managed not to get herself arrested, but she'd been barred from getting another plane home, "grounded for belligerent behavior," they'd said. Just peachy. Now she was stuck in Paris with a suitcase full of mostly dirty laundry and no way to get back to England.

Stranded in Paris. Stranded in a French cafe with her stomach twisting around free bread.

She hadn't ordered anything besides water yet partially because the alcohol was starting to work its way out of her system and was making her slightly queasy, partially because she was too annoyed to eat anything substantial, and partially because she didn't have extra money to be throwing around on expensive French cuisine.

Everyone had called her daft for spending her time searching for aliens. Well, not aliens. Just one in particular.

And what had it gotten her? A one-way ticket to France, when all she wanted was to be at home where she could afford the food and understand what people were saying. Most of the time anyway.

Huffing angrily, she looked over at the table opposite her. The couple there smiled as the waiter placed a plate of what she assumed was escargot before them. It looked revolting, and she crinkled her nose, ignoring their irksome glance in her direction as she did so. As they ate, she continued to stare, her gaze becoming more and more sour as she did. The little buggers on the plate seemed to slither and writhe as they consumed them, and Donna wasn't sure if it was the slight alcohol-induced fog that still hung around her mind causing it to play tricks on her or not. Either way, it was sickening, she she had to look away before it made her ill.

At least she tried.

But then one of them, apparently not as dead as Donna had hoped, opened its mouth, revealed a set of sparkling white, razor sharp teeth, and bit the woman's finger.

She screamed, and the entire restaurant turned to look and see what had occurred, and just as they did, while Donna watched in horror and disgust, the snail began to twist and swell, growing to gargantuan proportions until it was a huge squirming creature that stood nearly seven feet tall.

The cafe erupted into chaos as screams and the sound of pounding feet mixed with the creature's sickening gurgling. Even in her dazed state, Donna wasn't one to waste time; she bolted from the restaurant and sprinted down the street, breaking from the crowd to turn down a back alley.

Just as she looked back to make sure none of those horrendous things were following her, she plowed into something large and very solid, and fell to the ground. Her vision was a bit blurred as she looked up, but that shape and that shade of blue were unmistakable.

It was the Tardis.