Ben looked at the gate with consternation. Hannah didn't.
In actual fact, Hannah grinned at the gate. Grinned! As though she didn't see the big NO ENTRY signs plastered all over it. As he gave the junkmail one last nudge to shove it into the postbox, Ben thought it a good idea to point this out to her again, seeing as she seemed to have forgotten. "No entry, Hannah. It's there for a reason." he groaned, reaching into the rolling Ralph for the next bit of junkmail.
"But we could climb over and find that it's the entrance to another universe and the Doctor whisks over and picks us up!" she opined, running a hand along the bars of the wide gate to the units on the other side.
"Or we could climb over and get shot for trespassing." Ben shot back, rolling his eyes as he bent over to focus on what his hands were doing, losing Hannah's pout behind Ralph's cloth sides. Honestly, what did she think was going to be of interest on the other side of that gate? Grunting, he bit back a curse as the rubber band broke and lashed at his poor, defenceless hand. Extracting both the stubborn paper and his wounded hand from the bag, he looked up to see Hannah swinging her legs over to the other side of the wall to the side of the fence and leaping down, crouching to absorb the shock of landing. On the wrong side. The trespassing side.
Ben's eyes flew open wide and his brow creased simultaneously. "Hannah!" he yelled as she straightened up and dusted off her overalls. Eyes hunting the units for anyone that had spotted his friend, Ben ducked closer and lowered his voice to a harsh whisper. "Get back over here before someone sees you!" he ordered, gesturing desperately at the ground.
Hannah threw a grin his way but didn't listen, merely motioning for him to join her as she began to explore the other side of the gate. Ben, unable to allow his best friend to go and get herself shot alone, grumbled viciously and looked around nervously as he clambered over the fence, pulling Ralph through with him at the last second. At least if they were caught, they could pretend the rolling bag full of junkmail was their reason for being there.
His long strides taking no time to catch up to Hannah's significantly shorter ones, Ben gave her as disapproving a look as he could manage before his curiosity kicked into gear. He looked around himself as they wandered down the road, before he saw a side road with a field or garden of some kind…it looked magical. He steered towards it, knowing Hannah would notice and follow eventually. The first step onto the grass felt like heaven! The flowers seemed to spring up around him as he walked, little bees floating between them. The bushes on either side were the good old Aussie ones that looked amazing and had spikes. There were a few gnarled old men trees that had been around an age and survived so much that only old age dared to fell them. Ben couldn't help but smile at the beauty as he slowly meandered through the grass.
Hannah smiled at his side, waving a hand through the leaves to her side. She'd doubtless have some sort of hayfeverish reaction to it later, but who cared, she loved the feeling of the leaves running through her fingers. "See, totally worth jumping the fence." she grinned.
Ben threw her a look, but it held no chance against the giddy grin that wrestled for control of his facial expression, and soon there were two sixteen year olds wandering through some kind of forbidden, beautiful garden with a bag full of junkmail and thoroughly contented smiles.
"Oi!" a gruff, deep voice yelled from behind them, freezing the friends in their tracks as they looked back to see a solidly built man with a threatening look to him and a sneer to his lips.
They were not nearly quite so contented anymore.
"Crap!" Hannah cursed, throwing Ben a face full of her wide eyes. A second later, they both took off in a run, whizzing out of the other side of the garden. They flew down the street, Ralph still in tow, bolting into a side alley and streaking to the left before their founder could follow.
They continued to run for a while until they could no longer hear the man's heavy footsteps, and stopped by a wall. Ben, a long distance runner, kept glancing back, his hands tightening and loosening compulsively on Ralph's handle, his breathing only slightly laboured. "We've gotta go back and on our side of the fence." he said, shaking his head as he craned his neck to peek over the wall they were hiding behind.
Hannah, the despiser of physical activity for any extended amount of time, dropped to the ground with her back against the wall, red and sweating. "You're right." she allowed, pulling off her black rimmed glasses and cleaning them with a well-practiced move on the inside of the pocket of her overalls. Her brow creased with confusion. "But why was he so mad? All we did was take a stroll through a garden. For all he knew, we could have been delivering junkmail." she added, gesturing at Ralph. She did a double take. "You kept ahold of Ralph?" she asked, bemused.
Ben shrugged, pulling the little bag closer. "I like Ralph." he replied .
Hannah shrugged. Fair enough. "Well what now? We can't go back the way we came with Mr Grumpy standing guard."
"We could find a different way back." Ben suggested, throwing his gaze about for just that.
Hannah nodded. "Well, you know how good my sense of direction is, and my eyesight isn't exactly crash hot, so that's up to you Scoutboy."
Then there was a noise.
The noise was so familiar that neither of the friends thought anything of it when it first came into their hearing.
And then it registered.
"What?" Ben asked.
"No…" Hannah added as they gaped, staring first at each other and then at the space the sound was coming from, where now a wind was picking up the leaves and rubbish, throwing them about like toys.
"The TARDIS?" Hannah asked incredulously, unable to believe her own untrustworthy eyes as blue appeared before them.
Ben could tear his eyes away from it even less then Hannah could. He couldn't even blink. "What was that you said about another universe?" he asked in as quiet a whisper as could make it over the loud and distinct whirring and whooping of the pair's favourite time-travelling police box.
The TARDIS now stood fully materialised before them. The doors swung open and a hand stuck out, exactly like so many of the memes and the fanart drawings. Like on the TV show.
A head stuck out, shaggy hair that needed a cut, a big chin, a big nose, wearing tweed and a bowtie. "Well? Come on, we don't have all day!"
Another voice behind them yelled loudly. "Oi! You two!"
They didn't need to spin around to recognise the voice of Mr Grumpy, and so before they knew it, Hannah and Ben were pushing each other into the TARDIS and pulling the doors shut behind them.