The steady thrum of a headache had been building for the past half hour, but at least she's almost done with this awful paperwork. The mountain of papers that had greeted her when she came in that morning was slowly dwindling to just a few more sheets.
Something thudded against the door of her office. She turned away from the last sheet she'd been filling out as the door creaked open. But no one stepped inside.
Until a small metallic ball rolled around the edge of the door and into her office. Her eyes riveted to it as it made a turn halfway across the room and headed straight for her. Her eyebrows raised only a little bit as it collided with the leg of her desk and continued to roll up it until it stopped on top of the paper she'd been working on.
She stared down at the small ball for a moment, not touching it. Then her eyes went back to the still cracked door.
"Doctor," she called warningly.
The door was pushed open a little more as he shuffled inside, a half-sheepish smile on his face. "You called, Rose?"
Finally she picked up the ball, holding out the small thing towards him. It was a lot lighter than she would have thought it would be. "What is this?"
"Well… I haven't exactly named it yet. You see, I—"
"You're supposed to be downstairs in R&D. Doing the job you're paid for."
He stilled at her disciplinary tone. "I'll have you know, that's genuine development right there. It's a small, controllable pod. And the remote is only this big," he pulled something that looked like a joystick out of his pocket. "See, this sphere can go anywhere as long as the person with the controller knows how to operate it. I've even thought of putting a little camera on it so you can see where you're going, but there was a bit of trouble with the other staff getting motion sickness and—"
Her professional demeanor finally cracked as she put the ball back down, smiling at him and shaking his head. "And what is this remote-controlled sphere supposed to be used for?"
He blinked at her a few times. "Well.. Ah… Y'know, Rose, anything can be used for a lot of different purposes if you just—"
She raised her eyebrows warningly. "Doctor?"
He sighed, dropping his hands next to his sides. "I'm bored, okay, Rose? Stuffed in this building for eight hours a day. Really, I don't know how you people do it your whole lives. It's such a nice day outside, and that is so rare for London. Can't we just go home, or even better, find some sort of adventure?"
She smoothed her face into a more serious expression. "Doctor, we aren't supposed to be off for several more hours." He sighed again, looking like he was going to launch in to another argument. "But what good is being the Heads of Retrieval and R&D if we can't clock out early every now and then? Just let me finish this last bit of paperwork, alright? You think of ways to sneak past the guards."
His face split into a huge grin. "Rose Tyler, did I ever tell you you were brilliant?"
She smiled back. "You may have mentioned it a time or two."