"Isn't it a little small?"

He didn't quite sigh with exasperation or roll his eyes at the comment, but he did think about it. He loved the whole new-companion-smell and all that, but there were limits to the number of times he could hear the exact same things before he went crazy. "Just take a look."

She made a face, obvious trepidation her stance as she eyed the worn police box sitting there, neatly within one of the commuter parking spaces. She trusted him, trusted him more than she probably should, for someone she'd known for such a short period of time, but if he was having her on… Gently, as if expecting resistance, she poked her head between the swinging doors- and, right on cue, gasped loudly before turning to gape at him. "It's bigger on the inside!"

He mouthed it along with her. It never ceased to amaze him how many people who so very surprised by that one simple fact. "Is it?" He asked, as though he'd only recently just noticed.

She continued to gape at him for a moment, not really registering anything he said but looking remarkably more animated now that there was one of those pretty, harmless impossibilities to prove that not everything resulted in blown-up schools. Turning back, she stuck her head back in, marveling.

It was the most unassuming little police box she'd ever seen, just faded enough that she wouldn't have looked twice at it on the street, if she'd even registered its presence (which, now that she gave it a moment's thought, made perfect sense. He certainly wouldn't want random strangers poking around inside it), but on the inside- it was massive. The center was dominated by some deeply impressive, tower-like machinery surrounded by all sorts of complicated buttons and switches and dials (really, exactly what one might expect an overly-complicated time-machine to look like). The rest of the room was wide and open, with random long, sinuous supports holding up the ceiling, far further above her, and far more domed, than the box should have held.

Trying to contain her amazement, she stepped forward gingerly, as though expected the grated floor to bite. Slinking to the side, she circled around the center piece, marveling. It was simply impossible. Absolutely impossible. Carefully, so very carefully, she reached out to stroke a railing. When it felt solid, really was solid, really was there, she turned to him. "It's real." It was a whisper, packed with realization that not everything had to be as terrible as it had been; that there were really lovely impossibilities. That there might be no impossible.

He grinned back at her. There might be some repetition in the first comments made about the TARDIS, but he never did get tired of that look of amazement. "Isn't it brilliant?"

"What is it?" It had to have a proper name; nothing was this fantastic without a proper name. She continued turning, still marveling. From what she could tell from this cursory exploration, there were even more rooms tucked away, only increasing the amazement that it all fit in that little police box.

"The TARDIS. Time And Relative Dimension In Space." He strode about with her as though thoroughly comfortable inside this odd building/ship/whatever, reaching out to run a hand along the console as though saying hello to an old friend. "She's the last one." That fondness was in his voice as well, enough that she didn't question the gendering and personification.

He turned back to her, hands in his pockets and leaning against the console, a spark of that reckless joy, the excitement she'd only glimpsed earlier in his eyes. "So, where would you like to go? Forwards or backwards?"

She blinked at him, not having totally processed the magnitude of everything she'd been shown in the last few minutes. Here she was, inside a- a TARDIS, she reminded herself, it had a real name, a TARDIS larger on the inside than it was on the outside. If that didn't vouch for it being capable of whatever he said it was, she didn't know what would. Forwards or backwards? What did he mean- Oh. It hit her. Forwards or backwards in time. The idea of being able to make those sorts of decisions, as anything more than the sorts of silly conversations had at three in the morning, was just… amazing. "Um…" She bit at her lip, still swallowed up in the marvel. "Forwards." It was all about the possibility right now, and the future only made sense with that.

"How far?" He'd started flipping switches and twirling dials, moving around the great, circuitous array of mechanics as though he knew exactly what he was doing, like there was some great overlaying plan to travel by police box.

She hovered closer, fascinated by the process but unwilling to get in the way. "Really far." She wanted to see what she'd never be able to see, something fantastic and impossible.

"Really really far?" He asked again, eyes still with that manic glee that seemed to fuel him, as he continued throwing handles and hitting buttons.

She wasn't able to contain it any more, nearly hopping up and down with the sheer excitement of it all. "Really really far!"

"Alright," He seemed to have done whatever it was that he needed to do to get going, hand hovering over a final handle. "Hold on!" And he threw it.

Her laughter, over-bright and gleeful, accompanied their wild tumbling into space.

-

It was like nothing she'd ever experienced before, roller coaster or theme park ride, over before she'd had a chance to do more than grab on and laugh her way into the unknown. Flustered and wind-blown, she looked up to find him equally fluttered but only that much more invigorated.

He dusted himself off, obviously used to travel like this (how long had he been rocketing about time and space? She had a feeling like that would only leave her with more questions than it would answer). "Would you like to do the honors?" he offered, with a quick gesture towards those double doors. Maybe it was too much at once; maybe he should have slowed down, given her more time to adjust to the companion-role. He'd told her so little about himself, not realizing how thoroughly he'd uprooted her and whisked her away. But he'd so wanted to show her something that was lovely, something that wasn't an icy predator from another time. He'd been alone for a while, not the longest time he'd ever been on his own, but it had been long enough that he wanted this to work, didn't want to send her running off scared because there'd been too much at once, or because she'd seen too much of the wrong thing.

She blinked at him again, taking a quick moment to gather herself back into something resembling control. This was all going too fast, almost too much for her to handle. The idea that only heart beats ago she'd been standing in twenty-first century London, and that now she might be absolute anywhere… it was just too vast for her, not so close on the heels of everything else. Trepidation obvious, she stepped towards the door, not sure if she was more afraid that it would turn out to be a mistake, or that it would turn out that he was right. Taking another deep breath, she reached out and brushed the doors apart.

And stepped out into something wonderful.

-

The streets were full and bustling, great fantastic lamps dangling above them, a shining golden light that danced across the streams of people. The buildings lining the streets shone with elaborate glasswork and stone, reflecting back the happy chaos of the streets. There might not have been flying cars or an overabundance of chrome, (in fact, something about it seemed oddly vintage, as though she was seeing something very old reworked), but she was stunned all the same, gaping in such a way, that had any of the passersby been able to see her, they would have thought that she was very simple.

"Fifty-third century," He remarked to break the silence. He loved this part, the way she seemed to be almost paralyzed with amazement. "Three thousand years," He squinted up at stars just lightly becoming visible against the dusky sky, "and half a universe away from home." He stepped around her into the street, as though he did this every day, crashing about from one end of the sky to the other, hurtling about time. Because, really, that was exactly what he did. "Catherine Davies, welcome to the future."