"Jelly baby?" Cat held out a particularly crunched looking white paper bag as she perched herself on a railing across from the main control set.
The Doctor looked up at her from whatever it was that he was fiddling with on underside of the console, intrigued. "Where did you get those from?" He asked, taking one and inspecting it. "I haven't seen those for…" He paused for a moment, obviously trying to do some sort of math in his head, the fact that he was a time traveler making everything that much more difficult, "…roughly two hundred years."
"No idea." She shrugged, inspecting the next one before popping it in her mouth. She knew she probably shouldn't eat food that she'd found wandering about the TARDIS, particularly not two hundred year old food, but she figured the jelly babies would be safe enough. "I was trying to find the library and I ended up in the swimming pool, and I'm really not sure where I got to from there." Given her general dampness, it was fairly clear that she really had ended up in the swimming pool. It wasn't quite as bad as the first time she'd tried to find something particular, gotten hopelessly lost, and had to be rescued from a guest bedroom, but it was pretty close.
He gave her a look fairly similar to the one he usually gave her when he'd been explaining something in great detail and she didn't understand a word, but just ate the jelly baby and let it go. "So, there's been a change of plans," He began, sliding off those glasses that seemed to come from nowhere, back into one of those never-ending pockets.
She looked up from the bag, confused. "I wasn't aware that we had plans."
He continued, not acknowledging the fact that she'd been in the pool when he'd made whatever plans he'd made, and quite obviously hadn't been around for him to inform. "I got a call-"
"You got a call? Like, a phone call? You have a phone? With a number?" She interrupted, incredulous. "Where are we, anyway? How can you call someone who's in space? Does your phone only work when we're places that actually have phones?"
He gave her that look again, wondering why it was that phones, of all the things that she knew about him, that amazed her so very much. "It's not my phone," he began, not really wanting to go into who it was that had given it to him and who had the number, "and it's Universal Roaming. Service anywhere in space and time, and you never have to worry about a signal."
"So you could call anyone?" She asked for clarification, suddenly a little more serious. She'd just sort of blown off her parents the last time she'd talked to them, not exactly wanting to talk immediately after everything had gone down. And now that she was off traveling, she felt like she really ought to drop them a line just to tell them she was alright, even if she couldn't tell them where she was, or when she'd be back. Even if it was a time machine, and technically could drop her off only moments after she'd left, it just seemed like it might be a good idea…
He caught the gradual guilt in her voice and the meaning easily enough, as it wasn't like she was the first person to have ever traveled with him. Not the first person he'd dragged from their cozy, boring little world into the wonder. "If you've got someone you'd like to call," he held out a hand, expectantly.
She dug through her pockets, where she'd been keeping her mobile, as next-to-useless as it was floating out wherever they were parked, out of nothing more than a force of habit.
He passed over it with the screwdriver for a moment, obviously doing something, before tossing it back. "Go ahead." There was a measure of understanding in his eyes as he looked at her, something gentle. He flapped a hand at her, jumping up to start throwing switches and dials to prepare for takeoff. "I'll tell you when we've landed." Not that she'd really be able to miss it, what with the general hurtling about…
"Oh." That should have been obvious, that he was doing whatever he could to help her out, but it still surprised her, the possibilities that flung here and there off him like drops of water. She looked down at the phone in her hand, now something more, now a connection to a family she felt guiltily for having shrugged off so quickly. Scampering off, she found herself a semi-private corner of the room. Dialing the number, she hit send, and held it up to her ear, still not really expecting it to work.
Didn't expect to hear those familiar rings, and her mother's relieved "hello?"
"Hey," She breathed, still a little amazed. "I'm just calling to check in, you know…"
"I figured," Her mother replied gently, putting down the newspaper she'd been reading a more complete account of the accident at the university. "How are you feeling? Ready to come home?"
"What-" Cat began, before realizing how she'd left off her last conversation. Another bit of guilt, at having moved on so quickly. For having been so distracted by the shiny trappings of her new life. "I'm doing fine, really. And that's just what I wanted to call about, see, a- a friend, and I," because she had no other words for him that her mother would understand, that would make sense at all for someone who didn't know everything, "well, we're going to do some traveling, I think. Get away, you know? Clear our heads." Behind her, the familiar vworp-ing began, as did a sudden tilt to the side.
"Well, I suppose I understand," She didn't really, not at all, but she could try to pretend, "and if that's really what you want- what's that in the background?"
Cat, clinging on to the railing for dear life, tried to find a plausible explanation. "We're at a train station, sorry- it was all such an impulse thing, and I just wanted to let you know before-" Something made a distinctly un-trainlike sound behind her, and she could hear him furiously throwing switches and smacking at something. "But I've got to go!" and hung up. She didn't hear her mother's "talk to you later" to the dead line, with the quiet suspicion, too wrapped up in feeling better for having talked to them, proved she remembered them, to realize that she'd probably left them with more unanswered questions than anything else.
"We've landed," He was sparkling with excitement again, appearing over her shoulder. Those eyes were still too intense, they always were, but there was lightness to them now, his excitement catching.
"Where are we?" She asked, mood much lighter with relief that she'd gotten that taken care of, throwing the phone back in a pocket.
"Try and guess," He pushed her towards the doors, grabbing his coat as they went, enjoying the reveal as much as anything, riding on the possibility of it all.
She did a brief jump of a dance of excitement, pushing the doors open. Where could they be? Far into a fabulous future? In the past, playing with kings? Somewhere fantastic-
She stuck her head out, only to be promptly hit with a face-full of desert wind and sand. "Ooh!"
He popped up behind her again, far more enthusiastic than she was managing at the moment, looking out over the dusty street. "Twenty-first century, Roswell, New Mexico."