McKenzie had been spending a lot of time in her workshop since their trip to Nile, almost like she was avoiding him.
'What reason could she possibly have...' The Doctor thought to himself and sighed as he ran his hands through his hair in frustration.
After what had happened he knew she must know how he felt, or how he thought he felt... Even without her empathy she could probably tell, she could always tell, somehow.
He came to her workshop, sure enough she was inside working on her wristbands. He leant on the door for a moment and watched her. She stopped and turned to face him, looking up over her glasses.
"You do know that's a bit distracting?" she said.
He laughed awkwardly, "I'm sure I don't know what you mean."
She turned back to her work and pushed her glasses up her nose.
The Doctor sat down at her desk and watched what she was doing, "So, what are you doing?" he asked.
"Just a bit of a tune up... Since that shape-shifter, I want to make sure all my gadgets are working... like, better than ever kind of working." she squinted to get a better look at what she was doing, "You know... I was thinking about putting a zoom on these..." she looked up at him and winked.
Not noticing the wink he pulled over a magnifying glass on a stand, "Well, there's this?" he smiled.
She stared at him for a moment then laughed.
"What? You only had to ask if you needed a closer look at something."
She laughed even harder.
"What did I say something funny?" he looked really confused.
McKenzie smiled, "I'm only teasing you." she yawned and rubbed her eyes before getting back to work, "I'm just charging it up for quicker access and I've done a bit of tinkering with some of the tech from the dimensional field around the TARDIS."
The Doctor went to speak, but McKenzie interrupted him.
"And before you snap at me, I didn't change anything, I just wanted to make sure I knew how it worked so I could recreate the... the–" she yawned again, "Technology..."
"Are you sure you're alright, you've been spending a lot of time in here... Have you slept at all?"
"I don't need sleep I'm a... Time... Lord..." she yawned again.
"Alright, but don't you think you should at least take a little break?" he gently rubbed her shoulders.
"No, I'm fine." she pushed his hands off of her.
The way she reacted to his touch, he couldn't help think of his earlier worries that she was avoiding him.
"Oh, gosh..." she turned to him, "I wasn't... I'm not." she smiled sympathetically, "I just don't want to get caught in a situation where I can't defend myself, I want to make sure that these are good to go... you know? I'm not avoiding you I promise."
He smiled back, trying not to show that he didn't believe her.
"Come on, I have to show you this!" she put on her wristbands and stood back from The Doctor, "I've integrated the tech with the bands, so that when I clap them together, they create a dimensional shield around the wearer, like so–" she clapped her wrists together and stretched her arms out, a pale blue light flickered around her. She looked up at The Doctor and smiled.
"Very impressive." he smiled back.
"Yeah and–" the light fizzled and her wristbands sparked, "Uh oh–" her wrists glowed blue and sparked wildly, she shook violently as electricity rushed through her body.
Smoke drifted up into the air as McKenzie stood still, twitching slightly. Her hair stood on end and flickered a little, she let out a shaky sigh and took off her wrist bands.
"You think now might be a good time for a break?" The Doctor asked, trying not to laugh.
"Y–yeah" she said, still twitching "I–iit's a g–goood ti–ime for a b–brea–eak."