When the diner Vworped away from around the Doctor, he didn't do anything. He didn't say anything. He didn't seem to realize anything at all, and a casual observer, particularly one who had witnessed the conversation that had immediately preceded this momentous event could be forgiven for thinking he was a bit stupid (assuming, of course, that the said casual observer was able to form coherent opinions through the shock).

In fact, the Doctor had registered quite a number of things, but he had filed them all away for later consideration. Directly in front of him was something far more important.

His TARDIS was back.

He stood in front of her, eyes soaking up her blue expanse. Someone had painted something on her, marring the perfect blue he knew so well, but a trip through the vortex would fix that. He reached out and placed his hands on her panels, feeling her cool wood surface, and slowly opened her doors.

He didn't know what he would find inside. He had no way of knowing how much time had elapsed from her perspective-her physical perspective, anyway. (The mental time perception of a TARDIS was exceedingly complicated, and the Doctor very much did not want to spent too much time thinking about that right now, he just needed to know if she was all right).

Inside, it was very dark and very, very dusty. A long time, then. Long enough that the TARDIS had gone dormant in his absence, which she did not do lightly. But it was the dust that clinched it.

Fact: the TARDIS had a self-cleaning cycle that normally prevented any bothersome dust build-up. Fact: dust build-up would therefore only occur once the TARDIS had gone dormant.

Fact: dust is made from flakes of shed skin, dirt tracked in from outside, and tiny specks shed from material breaking down. Fact: no one had been shedding skin or tracking dirt here since the Doctor left. Conjecture: all of the dust in the TARDIS was a result of the TARDIS herself gradually falling apart.

Fact: TARDISes took a very long time to fall apart.

Fact: enough time had passed relative to the TARDIS to allow her to go dormant, then degrade sufficiently to develop a thick layer of dust.

Conjecture: She had experienced, if not as much time without him as he had without her, close to it.

It was still dark. Not a single light betrayed life.

Please, please...

Then, wonderfully, gloriously, a light went on. And another. And another. In a slow circle all around the console, the lights returned like the rebirth of hope.

Once again, he could feel her expansive presence in the back of his mind, encompassing him, holding him, reminding him who he was and that he was never truly alone. Not while she had anything to say about it.

He walked around the console, soaking it in, checking that everything was as he remembered it. He strode up the steps to examine a familiar chalkboard penned with an unfamiliar message:

RUN, YOU CLEVER BOY, AND BE A DOCTOR.

He could work out what that meant later. As he moved on, he saw a familiar burgundy jacket hanging near the board. He shed his black jacket and pulled it on, and heard a familiar buzzing noise behind him.

Putting up a hand, he caught his new sonic screwdriver.

She wasn't bitter. She wasn't angry. Four and a half billion years left to gather dust, and she still wanted to help him.

Sexy, I'm home.

The Doctor could have sworn he heard it, faint in his mind, the echo of a stored memory.

And what sort of time do you call this?