"You're telling me there's a planet where everything is upside down?" I whisper, feeling the blood rush to my head. It's become a pretty normal thing to act first and question the Doctor's sanity later. Which is why when she decided to hang upside down, to check the control systems, I didn't really hesitate in my haste to follow her. Thinking back now, I probably would have fared better by letting her get on with it. We were supposed to go see a sunrise on Tafeeti, but a distress call from this seemingly abandoned ship was something the Doctor couldn't ignore.

The deserted ship, marooned in space was covered in glass, everything seemed to be way to small for any normal sized person to operate. Using her sonic, she followed the signal, stopping suddenly and pointing it downwards. Placing an ear to the ground, she confirmed the signal was coming from below. How anyone could be down there was beyond me, as all I could see were a bunch of wires and flashing lights, but it was here our problem began. Getting through the glass was easy. The gap we had to stand was pretty much non existent, again adding to the fact that everything in this place was tiny. So with our legs acting as anchors on the floor, we reached down to get a better look of the situation.

"Well they don't know that. They've always seen the world like that. A bit like bats. Well, without the whole cocooning thing at night. Well, they do cocoon but that's only when they're taking part in a ritual murder," the Doctor grins at my look of horror. "Don't worry, they're herbivores," she adds as if that's supposed to reassure me.

"Now hush, I'm concentrating." She points her sonic at the control panel. Craning my neck, I look up through the glass. My eyes dart around, finding it extremely strange to see the spaceship from this point of view.

"Hold this," the Doctor hands me a beeping device, which I take, again, no questions asked.

"Do you think they all just decided teleport away?" I wonder out loud, slowly becoming more dizzy.

"But then how would we get the distress call?" I continue trying to piece together the mystery.

The rambling out-loud helps to fill the silence when the Doctor is concentrating, but I can't help but feel like I'm always competing with ghosts of companions past. Which is ridiculous; competing with a memory is impossible.

"Do you get koalas in space?" I ask suddenly, spotting a small grey creature up on the deck.

"Koalas?" The Doctor grunts as she pulls out a couple of wires. After analysing them for a couple of seconds, she throws them away. "Can't say I've heard of them. Great huggers though."

The koala meets my eyes and suddenly the pupils enlarge as his ears flop backwards. I'm barely aware of the instinctive 'aw' I breathe out. He reaches out his small paws, falling short because of his very small teeny arms. My hand shoots to my mouth at his actions. I know, no matter what, I want to keep him.

The koala stares at me, potentially inviting me to kidnap him, or at least not scurrying away when I attempt to get closer. Grunting, I push myself up to get closer to him.

"I've heard of space monkeys, clever little creatures," the Doctor says, but my attention is now purely on the koala, who all but beckons me towards him. Smiling to myself, I scramble towards his outreaching arms.

"They're great at repairing things, got me out of a tight spot once. The TARDIS was fine, the spaceship that we crashed into, not so much. But luckily they had some space monkeys on boa- DON'T MOVE!"

The Doctor suddenly yells, snapping me out of my trance. Confused I look down at her to see what the big problem was, but as I meet her eyes, my outreaching fingers meet that of the koala.

What was once a cute cuddly creature, turned into a vicious little terrier with razor sharp teeth. But that was the least of my fears. Putting both his arms around me, he starts to squeeze.

Look at me.

Tighter and tighter, his grip on me making it difficult to breathe.

Look at me.

"Whatever you do," the Doctor calls frantically as I turn back to the koala, hoping that I could somehow find a weakness in his grip. "DON'T look into his eyes."

But it's as if the Doctor was simply narrating my actions. The pull of his round innocent eyes is too difficult for me to resist.

LOOK AT ME.

With the Doctor's warning ringing in my ear, everything suddenly becomes dark.

It takes me a minute to realise I'm no longer with the Doctor. Groaning, I blink into the darkness, trying to make out my surroundings. The floor feels cold, hard, and definitely not something I would recommend falling onto.

"You alright?" A voice asks in the darkness. My eyes immediately snap to those of a stranger who smiles at me. She looks no older than ten, as she approaches me tentatively. Nodding, I sit up slowly, my head spinning. "Oooh careful, you don't wanna be like G," the child says patting my shoulder. She crouches down and shines a bright light in my eye. Squinting at her, I push the light away and fight the feeling of nausea.

"What happened to G?" I question trying to get my mind off the spinning sensation I feel in my stomach.

"The teleportation has horrible side effects, you just gotta focus on being here," the girl continues completely ignoring my question.

"Who are you? Where is here?"

"I'm Captain B and you are on board the Galactica," the girl grins at me offering me a hand. Frowning, I take it and slowly stand.

"You sent the distress signal?" I ask, my eyes adjusting to the darkness. It's a crowded room filled with other people, again looking no older than ten.

"No that was G, we owe him our lives," B says bowing her head. Narrowing my eyes I survey the room.

"We heard your distress call, we came to help," I mumble trailing off as I spot light in the distance. B notices what I'm looking at and nods her head towards it. Slowly I approach it, B follows behind me with a hard look on her face.

"It infiltrated our ship before we realised it was there. G spotted it and recognised it, he tried to raise the alarm, but it was too late. It tried to get him in the end, but he never let it get to his head. So when it tried to teleport him, he got vaporised instead," B says in a low voice, barely moving her lips. With a nervous glance backwards, I notice the rest of the crew have got their eyes trained on us.

"What is it?"

"A mutated fluffer. Part droid, part organic. My people created them to help with loneliness back home. But when they are brought into space, something strange happens and they try to take everyone away from their surroundings," B explains her eyes narrowing as we approach the source of the light.

"Space can make the strongest of us all feel alone. Since it's so vast, it can be suffocating. I think that's why they mutated, it was all too much."

B glances up at me, before pointing in the light. Due to the darkness of the room, the brightness is unwelcome, but I can just about make out a screen.

"Your friend is smart, but in some way I think she still needs teaching," B smiles and sure enough, if I squint I can see the Doctor's face as she frowns. The answer is right in front of her, I'm trapped in some crazy mutated fluffer that was looking to ease my apparent loneliness.

"She'll get us out," I say confidently, but watching her trying to figure this one out is more difficult than I can bear.

"What did you see?" B asks curiously as I raise my eyebrows at her. "The fluffer shows the recipient a creature of their choosing," B explains.

"A koala," I mutter, my mind trying to figure out why I would choose that animal out of them all. "Sorry, it's something from Earth," I clarify causing the confusion to clear from B's face. She smiles and nods at me.

"Yes, I saw something from home too. What do you think she is seeing?" B asks the question that had been running through my mind since I got here. Folding my arms I watch as she uses her sonic to analyse the creature, still adamant to look anywhere but at it. Which considering she's still hanging upside down, is definitely an amusing sight.

A strange beeping noise demands my attention. My hand slips into my pocket and pulls out the thing I absentmindedly took from the Doctor.

"That's the distress signal," B breathes, her eyes widening.

"That's how we ended up where the fluffer was," I realise piecing the puzzle together. "G was the last victim."

"May the stars keep him safe," B says automatically, approaching the screen. The Doctor pulls herself up, shutting her eyes tightly and sonics the fluffer again, her eyebrows knitting together tightly.

Think. What would the Doctor want me to do?

"Is there any way to turn it off?" I ask B suddenly, knowing exactly what the Doctor would want. She frowns at me and nods, holding out her hand for the device. Smiling to myself, I pass it to her and watch the Doctor as she scans the creature.

The Doctor at this point would want me to do so many things, but the number one thing she'd want from me, is confirmation that I'm alive.

"Gotcha!" The Doctor exclaims triumphantly and I don't bother hiding the beaming grin. "Sorry, it's just you're not her and I think it's high time you returned them all," the Doctor says gritting her teeth. One hand clutching her sonic screwdriver, her eyes still shut tightly, she crouches down and points toward the fluffer - towards us.

"Here we go!" The Doctor yells. Everything suddenly goes dark again, my feet no longer feeling solid but more like jelly.

But then I blink and we're standing on the ship floor, no longer trapped in some crazy thing, no longer upside down.

"You alright?" A familiar Northern voice calls and a laugh escapes me as I run to hug the Doctor. "I couldn't locate you, and I couldn't open my eyes, so I had to wait and I hoped you would figure it out, but I just kept scanning - looking for a change." The Doctor rambles in my ear but I shake my head and laugh, never feeling more pleased to be out of the dark and back with her. Suddenly seeing a koala made sense to me.

I was craving a hug.

After checking on everyone and disposing of the machine, which was quite difficult since the Doctor wanted to keep it and run tests, we headed back to the TARDIS.

"From this day forth, this ship will be called GalatiKoala, in honour of our friend and a reminder to always look out for one another!" B had proclaimed as we were leaving. I smiled at her and waved, knowing that though she may look like a child, the captain had more bravery and empathy than most adults I knew back home.

"So, Tafeeti then?" The Doctor asks, back in the TARDIS, but I frown at her folding my arms. After everything there was still one question that was bugging me.

"The fluffer shows the recipient something to help with their loneliness, what did it show you?"

The Doctor shift awkwardly at my question, before turning to face me, her eyes staring intently into my own.

"You. It showed me you." She says simply, before smiling and flicking a switch on the TARDIS console. She didn't need to say anymore, but my earlier insecurities of not being able to compete with memories of previous travellers vanished with her statement. Grinning, I join her by the console, threatening to push different buttons like I usually teased her.

Mental note to self; koalas are cute, but deadly.