Mushrooms and First Words

by Constant Babble

Long conversations with the Doctor interrupted by ballet, River Song, and running.

AN: This is part of the Blood and Time series, and a crossover with Constant Comment Tea's Interaction series. Here's the context if you don't have it or forgot (you can skip #1 and 2 if you've read Pull to Open because, yeah, we copy-and-pasted the notes from there):

1. Judith Cole is a long-time friend of Angel's. When Judith's son, William, was 9, Angel rescued and accidentally befriended him, and then even more accidentally became a mentor/father figure for after William's parents divorced. William is now a married adult and almost-father living just outside of town. (Reference: The Art of Human Interaction.)

2. Angel and Judith's friendship recently (and surprisingly to both of them-and to CCT, honestly), became sexual, but not romantic. They're going with it. Details in Confidants and Rubies.

3. For the Doctor, this is set after "The Wedding of River Song." Which will become clear.

4. In terms of the Blood & Time series, the Doctor's state of mind will make somewhat more sense (or at least, fit consistently) if you read Going Out With a Bang first.

---

Judith had been having a very normal day, at the time.

She had talked to William in the morning, partly to confirm her plans to visit them that weekend and partly as an excuse to just see him through the video.

Then she had gone grocery shopping to pick up tomatoes, millet, and parmesan cheese. On the way home, she had run into Adele and Claire, who were having coffee at an outdoor cafe and enjoying the early fall weather. She had stopped and chatted with them for a bit before returning home to put away her groceries before her shift at the hospital.

She had sat with a family waiting to hear about their mother's surgery (it went very well), and then helped Cathy behind the front desk for a bit, half-listening to her complain that her boyfriend didn't bring her enough flowers, half-listening to a song stuck in her head about springtime in Paris.

When she'd gotten home, she'd changed out of her hospital uniform and into her favorite summer dress, even though the day was almost over and no one would see her wear it (and when else would she get to wear it until next summer?). Her father had always told her to dress as if the Queen might unexpectedly stop by, and though he'd been gone since her mid-20's, the instruction was well-ingrained and, she thought, quite proper to uphold. She was just about to pull out the ingredients she would need to cook dinner when there was a knock at the door.

Judith went to answer it, making sure her skirt was straight and unwrinkled as she went.

The Doctor stood on her doorstep. The Doctor, whose brilliant blue time-and-space-traveling box had - just a few weeks ago - whisked her and Angel off to the distant past to see the very first fireworks show before he had disappeared again, flying off to dimensions unknown.

And now he was at her front door, half bent over as though he might have been trying to look into the keyhole while he waited (but who had a keyhole these days?). The way he quickly stood up and started fidgeting with his fingers suggested that he was up to some sort of minor mischief.

Judith blinked once in surprise, and then beamed. "Doctor!"

"Judith!" the Doctor replied with equal enthusiasm. "You are home. I suspected that. Although if the lights being on had been a minor invasion of Snarlplats then you can rest assured that I was prepared to deal with the problem."

Judith glanced back at her lights uncertainly. "Indeed..." she said, then gathered herself together. "I believe you would. Come in, of course! How have you been? What brings you back to our fine city?" She was more interested in what had brought him to her home in particular, but she hoped that they would get there with 'our fine city.'

The Doctor occupied himself with stepping over her doorstep, which seemed to deserve his full attention. Once he was inside, he looked around like he had to adjust to the new environment and figure out exactly what his relationship to it was. "I was..." he started as he continued looking around and bouncing on his toes, "...going to..." He looked up at Judith. "Bring you mushrooms. Said I would and now here I am."

"Oh?" Judith said. She had no memory of the Doctor saying any such thing, but then again, he did say a lot of things very quickly. Perhaps she had missed it. "How lovely." She was just wondering if she needed to smooth over her forgetting the promise eve more when she took in the Doctor again and noticed his very empty hands. "Er… Where are they?"

"What?"

"The mushrooms."

"Oh! Right. Mushrooms." The Doctor looked around again, felt a few pockets and finally said, "I left them in the TARDIS. I had exploring to do. How are you supposed to explore a city when you have to carry a bag of mushrooms around?"

"I...don't know," Judith said honestly. "Then why didn't you go back to get them before coming here?"

"I left them in the TARDIS," he said again and pointed with both hands down her hallway.

It took Judith a moment to realize what he was saying. She opened her mouth, closed it, gave the Doctor a puzzled look, and strode down the hall toward William's bedroom-the only room in that direction she had not been in recently.

There, amongst piles of slightly dusty toys, worn furniture, old gadgets, outgrown clothes, and boxes of "To sort through later"s, stood the Doctor's majestic blue TARDIS, looking both completely out of place and completely like it belonged. Judith was not sure whether she should be stunned, happy, or disconcerted at the-albeit well-intending-invasion.

"There she is!" the Doctor exclaimed, picking his way expertly around the piles to the TARDIS door. Judith kept William's bedroom door closed for a reason: she kept telling him to come and clean out some of his things, but he never did.

The Doctor pushed through the door and disappeared into the ship. The door swung almost closed behind him but left a crack through which a warm light and the hum of the engines escaped. Judith was just starting to wonder if she should follow the Doctor in and if so would she ever be able to find him, when he appeared holding a brown paper bag aloft. "Here we are!"

Judith beamed again and stepped forward to take the bag from him. "Thank you, Doctor," she said, and opened the bag to look inside. The mushrooms were...well, vivid was the only way to describe them. There were several different colors, including oranges, blues, and the more earth-normal browns, but even the browns somehow looked electric, like they were all still humming with life. She took a deep sniff. The nutty scent was intoxicating. Almost literally. Her head swam a bit as if she'd just had a large glass of wine.

Judith looked up and smiled. "Thank you," she said again. "I can't wait to try these. Are they better cooked or raw?"

The Doctor looked up, too, as he had been eagerly trying to look in the bag with her; like he didn't know what was inside but would very much like to find out. "Well," he said, peeking in the bag again. "You'll definitely need to cook the green ones. Do you know, they'd go marvelous with..." the Doctor wandered out of the room, apparently on a cooking-based mission.

Judith followed, a bit flustered at the sudden turn her normal day had taken. The Doctor was still talking when they reached the kitchen, and after Judith set the bag down on the counter, she pulled out her Palm and made a note to definitely cook the green ones.

The Doctor didn't stop with entering the kitchen though: as soon as he'd entered he started pulling open cabinets and drawers, and the refrigerator when none of that seemed to have what he wanted. All the while he talked, at first about which mushrooms needed to be cooked (Judith studiously took notes on this) and then on what they tasted best with and then she suspected he was doing some form of name dropping, but for someone she had never heard of and who possibly lived on another planet.

Before the Doctor had finished his story about a planet with people that turned into mushrooms...or maybe they were turned into mushrooms by something else, Judith wasn't really sure, the Doctor was hip deep in cookware; all of them involved in whatever dish he was apparently cooking for her.

Judith sat down at the kitchen table, thinking that it was probably better that she stay out of the way. Besides, it was nice having someone else cook for a change.

"So, Doctor, how have you been?" Judith interrupted when there was a slight pause. Judith didn't normally interrupt people, but the Doctor's monologue had gone on for so long now that it seemed clear that nothing of real substance would ever get discussed if she didn't steer the ship a little. "Did you make your appointment with the...er...Alignment?"

The reason the Doctor had rushed off a few weeks before was because of some 'appointment with the universe' that involved an 'Alignment of Exodor' (she thought that was the right name), that Angel had explained would somehow save the Doctor's life. It was all quite baffling to her, and for some reason it had been difficult to pry more information out of Angel about it.

The Doctor had swiveled on his heels when she'd said his name, sending a few drops of creamy broth splattering across the kitchen, but at the word, "alignment," he swung back around again toward the stove. "No, no, no. I think I mentioned that I'm not good at getting places on time. I missed it entirely! Funny story. There were Cybermen sapping power from a mall some two centuries ago. Have I ever told you about my friend Craig?"

With that, he was off again, happily stirring and explaining about how Craig had a baby now, and wasn't that lovely? (Judith agreed that babies were lovely.)

"I mean, a bit useless in a fight," the Doctor commented, separating egg yokes over a bowl. "But I think that's a good way to start anyway."

"I...would have to agree," Judith replied. "But I don't understand- I thought the Alignment was supposed to...save you. Somehow. And yet you're still alive, even though you missed it."

"Oh, you know me," the Doctor laughed, like this explained everything. He opened several drawers until he found a whisk and pulled it out. He started vigorously beating at the remaining egg whites.

But Judith really didn't know him. She had only met him a few times and each of those times he was on his way out: Running off to find his TARDIS, slipping away to give her and Angel space, and even when he had invited her on a trip, he had just as suddenly ended that trip to run away to a different dimension (if she was even remembering that right).

Now that she was thinking about it, it seemed strange that the Doctor would show up in her home and do something as normal as cook her dinner. Even if he was doing it in the most chaotic way possible.

"From what I do know of you," Judith observed, "I'd sooner guess that you were hiding from some monster and not paying me a visit."

Judith had meant the comment to be a playful jibe, but she noticed how the Doctor's hand slipped and some egg whites slopped over the side of the bowl.

"No," the Doctor said with a small smile that didn't reach his eyes, "nothing like that."

Judith gave the stutter and the smile some quiet contemplation while the Doctor added the frothed eggs to the soup. She was just gathering her words to apologize when the Doctor said, "No one ever thinks I'm just here to visit." He stirred with much less enthusiasm now. "It's probably because I don't. I could though. You don't know. Just throw in a brief visit."

"Of course," Judith agreed quickly, wanting to back away from the toes she'd apparently stepped on. "And it's been a lovely visit so far," she added. "I don't often get cooked for. It's a nice change. So," she backtracked to her earlier, more polite question, "how have you been?"

The Doctor looked to be absolutely flustered by the repetition of this polite question. "I've been-" he started, but dropped the attempt to answer in favor of ladling soup into two bowls.

Judith waited patiently, though it soon became obvious that her waiting would be in vain. The Doctor set the bowl of soup in front of her before sitting down opposite her, and she thanked him. She picked up her spoon, dipped it in, and blew steam off of it. Even so, it was still much too hot to try just yet. Setting the spoon back down, she asked as gently as she could, "Should I take it that you haven't been well?"

"Dead," the Doctor said abruptly. He stood up again to get a salt shaker from the counter and sat down again, shaking salt into his own bowl. "I'd appreciate it if you don't tell anyone otherwise. I am, as far as everyone is concerned, very, very dead. Completely gone. Burnt up."

Judith's jaw dropped in shock. Apparently the Alignment of Exodor was supposed to save his life? So if he missed it and died, how was he making her mushroom soup? "Well..." she said eventually. "I'm very sorry to hear that."

"Well not really," the Doctor said, like she might be fuzzy on this part of the story. "I'm only faking." He tasted his soup and seemed pleased with the result. "How about you Judith? You must be a grandmother by now. How's the baby? Did they pick a name?"

Judith smiled. "Not quite yet. She's due in about two months. They're favoring the name Josephine, but Simone is still a contender."

"You need to be careful with names," the Doctor said with a serious nod. "I'm sure they'll figure it out in the end." He took a sip of his own soup and then pointed with his spoon at the wall that divided the kitchen from the living room. "The picture on the shelf in the living room. That's William, isn't it?"

"Yes, and his wife. She's a lovely woman. You should see her in her wedding dress, she looked just radiant." Judith took out her Palm to find the wedding photos. Normally she didn't like to show pictures unless prompted, out of courtesy to the other person, but the Doctor seemed like the type to be genuinely interested. When she found the picture she was looking for, she handed the Palm to the Doctor and tried a bit of her soup. It was astoundingly delicious. She told him so.

The Doctor nodded in response to the compliment and turned the Palm a bit and then poked at the side, shifting to other pictures. Judith ate while he scanned the photos, content to let him browse without interruption.

"Did you ever get married?" the Doctor suddenly asked, still looking intently at the Palm.

"Oh yes," Judith replied. "William's father was a college friend of mine. We were married 10 years."

"What happened to him?" the Doctor peaked briefly up over the Palm.

Judith glanced up from her soup at the Doctor. "He's still in town, though on the other side. I see him occasionally. It was not a terribly happy parting, but not terribly messy, either. Why do you ask?"

The Doctor turned the Palm off and handed it back. "It was a lovely wedding," he told her.

"Yes, it was," she agreed, lightly scrutinizing him. She ate a few more bites of soup. "And what about you, Doctor? Have you ever been married?"

The Doctor pushed the soup around with his spoon. He added salt and stirred it in. "I got married before I left Gallifrey," he said, also very carefully.

Ah. "Tell me about them," she said. She wondered if she should also add, "or it." It was difficult to know with other species.

The Doctor watched her for a long time. She could almost see him weighing the options just behind his eyes. He moved, pushing back his chair and fishing in his pocket. It took a long time, and involved something similar to a clown act as far as emptying pockets went. Toys, gadgets, tools, and trash all got dumped on her table with a stoic determination that quelled her laugh into a tiny smile.

Eventually he pulled out a tiny device with a screen that was cracked in one corner. He turned it on and handed it to her.

"That's our granddaughter," he said.

Judith stared at the picture, holding it as if it were sacred-which, of course, it was. The picture was of a pixie-ish dark haired girl positioned in front of arching pillars of alien architecture. It was shot from a short distance, obviously taken to fit the girl's whole form and possibly to capture the red robes and rather ornate collar that stuck up far past her head. She wasn't smiling; instead she looked uncomfortable, like this would be one of the disregarded photos in a series. Judith could see the resemblance in the eyes.

"She's beautiful," Judith said softly, and not just because it was customary. She thought the Doctor would know that. "What's her name?"

"Susan."

Some day, Judith would have to find out why the Doctor wouldn't share names, but seemed to put so little thought into coming up with fake names. Susan was obviously not an alien name. Today probably wasn't the day, though, and she asked, "How old is she here?" instead.

"Eight," the Doctor leaned back, absently rolling a screw that had come from his pocket along the table. "That's just before she went to look at the Untempered Schism. Thus the, um, outfit."

"The Untempered Schism?" Judith frowned. It sounded...dangerous.

The Doctor nodded, sticking the screw back in his pocket, probably to free up his hands for miming a large circle. "Picture a hole in the universe," he said, "except inside is the universe. All of time and everything. Then take that and put it in a dusty picture frame and stick that in a big, dark, empty room and then tell an eight year old to look at it."

Judith tried to conceptualize this-she really did-but as with most things the Doctor tried to explain, she felt two steps behind. She spoke out loud, trying to clarify, "So essentially, you show your children a window to everything in the Universe, including all of time: past, present, and future?"

"You can't be a Time Lord without it," the Doctor explained.

Judith sat with that idea for a minute. "All of everything..." she mused. "What does it look like? How do you see that all at once?"

The Doctor looked up at Judith and she noted the pain in his eyes. Pain that was old, but still fresh. "It looks like the Time Vortex at first...which you don't...it's cloudy. Like storm clouds in a spiral with light in all of the places you don't expect light to be." The Doctor leaned back, lost in thought or memory. "And you're just thinking that the whole thing isn't that bad when you notice the Web of Time that's been under and on top of everything and you just hadn't noticed it. All golden threads that connect and branch out.

"I picked one up - not literally of course - and everything stretches out from that point. Everything. Colors and people and stars. All of them touching and at some point the same thing and at the end there's screaming."

"Why?"

The Doctor looked away from Judith. "I don't think it's the same for everyone. Every thread I touched ended in screaming...but that could be because I picked the wrong ones, or because I touched them...or maybe because I ran before the screaming stopped."

"Didn't the Time Lords ever talk about their experiences?"

"Not as much as you'd think. Or maybe I wasn't invited. That might be it." the Doctor went back to his soup like nothing had happened. "You didn't ask about that first look, though. It was actually surprisingly kind. Mostly the Time Lords were about being stoic and controlled, but you could run that day. You could cry. Susan cried for five days."

Judith swallowed uncomfortably.

"Of course, I might have bitten the High Councillor. I think he held it against me when I took my driving test."

"Why?" Judith asked. "Why put a child through that at such a young age, when you have so much time to wait until they're older?"

"Well," the Doctor seemed to think about this like it had never occurred to him before. He shrugged and repeated, "You're not a Time Lord until you look. And it's not like they can expect you to go to the academy without having seen the Web of Time."

"But that's a cultural thing, right? It's not like you're not biologically Time Lord until you look. Someone, a long time ago, must have decided that eight years old was the proper age. I have to wonder why, if it's so traumatic that no one ever talks about it."

"It's not always traumatic. Not everyone ran. Some found the whole thing inspiring. Then you didn't talk about it because it was personal or special or sacred. The result tended to be the same." The Doctor twisted his spoon in his soup. "I suppose, though, children are better at things like that. It's easier to move on. Children don't know how to hide tears and it's probably better for them."

Judith nodded slowly. "So what is it about that moment that makes you a Time Lord? If I were to look into it, would that make me a Time Lord?"

"It would make you go mad. Or kill you." The Doctor winced and put his spoon down again, folding his fingers together and resting his chin on them. "But the privilege of looking is what makes you a Time Lord. Without it you're Gallifreyan." He lifted his head from his hands again so he could wave one of them. "Not that- I don't think there was another species allowed access to it. Like I said, you saw the Web of Time. It was always there...but that was when you saw it. It's like, if William was born blind how long would you wait to fix his sight?"

"I understand," Judith nodded. "As well as I can, anyway."

The Doctor waved a hand. "It's all theoretical now. The Untempered Schism is gone." He reached out for the device and the picture it contained.

Judith handed it back silently and watched the Doctor turn it off, his eyes lingering on the blank screen longer than they had on the picture itself. Then he tucked it back into his pocket and started loading everything back in on top of it. Judith took several bites of soup while he did this. When he was done and had taken a bite of his own, Judith asked,

"So, Doctor, why all the talk on marriage and children?"

The Doctor dropped the screw back into the pocket. "I think..." he said, patting his pocket, "I might have gotten married again."

Judith blinked again. "You think?" She considered this. "Las Vegas? Just how drunk did you get, Doctor?" she gave him a teasing smile.

"Was not!" the Doctor said defensively. "It's just that the ceremony might have been a bit wrong. Ties aren't really sacred cloths, her parents didn't actually figure out what was going on until after they did their part and I never actually told her my name." He picked up his spoon just to stab at his soup. "It wasn't really even my proper body standing there. So really, the whole thing's probably awash."

Judith stared at him.

"I'm terrible at weddings," he admitted.

"Clearly," Judith agreed with a little laugh. "Did you want to marry her?"

"Maybe," he told his soup. "It's hard to tell."

"Hm," Judith said. "Then it's probably too early, anyway. How long have you been seeing each other?"

"It's hard to tell," the Doctor said again. "It changes. And most of the time one of us isn't..."

"Isn't...?" Judith prompted.

The Doctor winced. "Completely...sure. About the seeing thing. Mostly we guess. Or ignore it. Or we do other things. Mostly we do other things."

Judith frowned and puzzled at it for a moment. Then her eyes widened. "Is she a time traveler, too?"

"That's the problem!" the Doctor seemed pleased that Judith understood. "It's out of order. Most of the time I love out of order. I'm good at out of order. But I'm terrible at weddings and I don't think it's balancing well."

Judith gave a slight chuckle. "So then how are you ever supposed to know anything for sure if you keep doing 'other things'? When does ignoring something that's bothering you ever help, really?"

"How am I supposed to tell if I never try?" the Doctor sat up straighter in his chair, seemingly determined to be difficult. "Anyway, if we're not really married, then I don't have to find out at all."

Judith frowned. "You don't want to find out? Isn't that part of the fun of it?"

The Doctor slumped again. "But then if you find out, is it fun after that?"

"Oh, yes," Judith said certainly. "Not finding out would get stale. It would be like a puzzle that's impossible to solve. The fun of puzzles is that it is possible to solve them, and that you know you'll get there eventually, but you don't mind slowly piecing it together until then." She paused. "Besides, Doctor, in love, there's always more to discover."

"Maybe," the Doctor said, rubbing the spot just above his eyebrow. He paused and looked back at Judith, "Angel said that part of what you agreed was exciting was that you didn't think about it too much."

Judith was a little surprised. Angel had discussed their relationship with the Doctor? She didn't mind, but she was curious to know what Angel else had said about it. Part of not thinking too much about where their arrangement might be going was not discussing it with each other. Not as a rule, but as a natural consequence.

"Yes," Judith said, pausing for another spoonful of soup. "Just letting something be as it is is a freedom that most people don't allow themselves. It's nice not to have that pressure of expectations." She paused. "But that was intentional. If we hadn't talked and agreed that this is what we both want, I think by now the uncertainty itself would have been too much pressure. As in everything, there's a balance to be struck with how much you're willing to go on not thinking about. And how much is healthy to go on not thinking about. If you ignore something, you don't allow it that chance to become something else, and eventually it starts to rot."

The Doctor nodded, running his fingers along the tablecloth. "I like to pretend that we're letting it be," he said. "And she might actually be doing that most of the time. But it's a cheat. I know when she dies, Judith. I know how and why. I know what I do to make that a little bit better. But I'm not really sure how anything is supposed to get along when I've already peeked at the end."

"I think sometimes you forget, Doctor," Judith said softly, "that everyone who is mortal has already peeked at the end. We love anyway, and even though we don't know exactly how, we always know it ends in death."

The Doctor smiled at her. "You know, I think you're right. I do forget that. I think it's about every time someone leaves I forget. Thank you."

Judith nodded once, graciously. After a brief hesitation, she said, "I don't know what Time Lords believe about the afterlife, but of course the difficult part is that, for Angel and the people he loves, death is truly the end." She paused. "For most people, death is a temporary separation. That's what most people believe, myself included, and it eases that tiny glimpse into the future that we have about how it all 'ends,' because we can believe that it never actually will." Judith took a deep breath to keep her calm exterior composure. "And though the love that Angel and I share isn't romantic, it's still profound, and we will be going to separate places after death. That, I think, is the worst part about knowing."

The Doctor reached across the table to touch Judith's hand. "I can look after him," he said.

Judith smiled. "Thank you. I do appreciate that. I often worry about what he'll do after we're all gone. William has promised to look after him as long as he can, since we all assume that he'll outlast Calder." It was a less morbid assumption than it sounded: Calder was like a second son to Judith, but he was still a Champion for the forces of good, and Champions put themselves in danger regularly. Judith was deeply - if quietly - glad when William had chosen to reject the mantle.

"He does a good job, I think," the Doctor said absently.

"William?"

The Doctor nodded.

"How do you know?"

The Doctor made a face that might have been intended to look innocent. He exaggerated a shrug and took a bite of soup.

"Doctor," Judith used her motherly pressing tone of voice.

"Don't use a motherly pressing tone on me when I'm ten times your age."

"That does not mean you still couldn't use a mother," Judith replied without missing a beat. "Doctor, have you seen Angel in the future?"

"I might have, but you get no details! I have rules, you know." He waved his spoon at her.

Judith narrowed her eyes at him. "You don't seem like the rule-following type," she said. "Please, only let me know if he's doing alright. That will be one less thing I need to worry about."

The Doctor sighed. After a moment of consideration he said, "Angel was fine. Happy even. We picked flowers. No, don't look at me like that, we did. Who's been to the future, here?"

Judith still gazed at him a bit skeptically, but she relaxed. She believed that Angel was happy, and that was what mattered. "Thank you," she said, going back to her soup. As she ate, she wondered how much she wanted to know the answer to the question that occurred to her; it was one of those things they were deliberately not thinking about. She asked anyway. "Was Cordelia around for him?"

"Getting a little greedy with your questions, aren't you?" the Doctor chided.

Judith resented that a little, but decided she didn't want the answer badly enough to pursue it. Perhaps, with his knowledge of the future, the Doctor was doing her a kindness. Judith offered the Doctor a little smile. "Alright, then," she agreed, bending back over her soup.

The Doctor smiled back. "I wouldn't worry too much if I were you," he said.

"I try not to," she replied. "I know it never helps anything to worry. It's just that we slip into habits."

"Oh, it helps a great deal to worry about things," the Doctor said. "I'm pretty sure that's why I end up in half the trouble I do. But you might be talking about a different type of worry."

"I must be," Judith said with a slight frown. "In my experience, worry is nothing but circular thinking about something that may or may not happen. In this case, I worry about something that will certainly happen-which is ridiculous of me-and I worry about how I will cope, when in reality I know nothing about the afterlife and if coping is even an option there. Also ridiculous of me. I have never known worry to be a good thing, yet I do it anyway."

The Doctor nodded. "We all have bad habits," he agreed.

"And what are yours?" Judith asked.

"I exclude myself from the statement, of course," the Doctor said with a grin.

Judith grinned back. "I don't believe that's possible, Doctor," she replied.

"I'm like Mary Poppins," the Doctor insisted. "Practically perfect in every way."

"And once you fix things, you leave quickly without a second glance?"

"Just so," the Doctor held up a hand to display Judith and her wisdom to the kitchen.

"I see," Judith replied.

"Speaking of bad habits- no, that's not nice, but I'll ask anyway: how is Angel now?"

Judith almost laughed. "He's doing fine. He worried about you after you left last time; speaking of worrying about things we can't control."

"Did he?" The Doctor's hand dropped back to his lap. He looked oddly concerned as he shifted nervously in his seat.

"He thought you didn't seem yourself," Judith replied. "That you were possibly even avoiding him."

"I wouldn't stop by to visit someone I'm avoiding," the Doctor said. "I certainly don't take them to see fireworks. This is after the fireworks?" Judith nodded. "See? I'm shockingly good at avoiding people," the Doctor concluded.

Judith frowned. She had meant that he seemed to be avoiding Angel at the end of the fireworks visit, but she supposed she hadn't specifically said so. "But you're still not visiting him now," she pointed out. "You're visiting me."

The Doctor smiled and nodded knowingly. "And that's how you know I'm not avoiding you," he said.

Judith sat back in her seat, scrutinizing the Doctor's cheerful, perfectly self-assured expression. She decided he was quite clever. Possibly too clever. But if there was something going on between him and Angel, it wasn't exactly for her to pry into. They were both grown men and could handle their own disagreements.

"Well," Judith said, pulling the conversation back on track. What had they been talking about? Oh yes, mortality and how one copes when death is truly the final separation. It was not exactly a pleasant topic. "I appreciate that you've looked in on Angel in the future, regardless. He has a way of making me feel younger than I am, but I certainly won't be around much longer on his scales."

"I wouldn't weigh yourself as lightly as that," the Doctor said seriously, his eyes meeting hers with deep, unflinching interest. "Some people leave very heavy impressions. No matter how short the relationship." He leaned back in his chair, making a thoughtful sound. "Impressions aren't exactly heavy. Quite the opposite. You know what I mean. A rock-scale tipping-impression-y..." he trailed off and eventually waved his hand dismissively. "If it helps."

It did, actually. Well, it was deeply flattering. What that potentially implied for their relationship was a little…

Well, they weren't thinking about that now. One day at a time. Today, she was happy with where they were. Today, she didn't need it to be anything more.

Judith smiled at the Doctor. "Thank you," she said. "It's wonderful to hear. And true on my side, too. Angel had left quite the impression on me in a short amount of time. I didn't know that I could still behave so...impulsively; but he brings it out."

The Doctor leaned in again, smiling like she'd already told an entertaining story. "Impulsive?" he prompted.

"Oh yes," she smiled, trying to think how to politely say that even on her off days and in inconvenient circumstances, Angel had a way of making Sex Right Now seem deliciously irresistible. "He wraps up our...time together so attractively that one of us ends up seduced even if that wasn't the original intent. And I am usually very intentional about things." She paused, thinking about examples of this. "For instance, he taught me how to drive his car this summer - it's one of those old gas models, you know, and a stick shift - and he chose a night that was the end of a long work day for me. I was tired and not especially interested in learning something new, but he showed up at work in this...undeniably sexy car - and I don't normally think such things of cars - and asked if I wanted to go for a ride, and my coworkers- Well, it was so delightfully shocking, Doctor, for an older woman like me to ride off in a car like that." She waved her hand to tell the rest of the story and picked up her spoon again. "That's the sort of thing I mean."

The Doctor looked almost proud of her for this adventure. He had taken a few bites of his soup while she had talked, but looked completely invested throughout. "I do love the freedom of doing something new," he said. "And also for making a scene."

"Yes, the young ladies I work with were quite shocked. It is fun to be shocking occasionally, isn't it?"

The Doctor looked over his shoulder like she was possibly talking to someone else. He caught sight of the kitchen in the process. "I don't think I'm ever anything else," he said. "It might be difficult for me to judge. I once entered a room through the chimney just because it was there."

They shared a laugh that was easy and familiar, and when it naturally died down they both ate in companionable silence for a moment before the Doctor commented, "I'm glad he's not worrying so much. He was very concerned about what he would say to you after you went missing."

Judith smiled a little, thinking about that incident last winter. While she had stepped on board the TARDIS and accidentally jumped twelve days into the future, Angel had had to wait behind, with the Doctor as a houseguest. It had been at the very beginning of Judith and Angel's sexual relationship; too early to have even had a What Are We Doing? conversation about it. For Judith, only minutes had passed, but Angel had gotten the chance to pause, question, and worry about that impending conversation. She felt somewhat guilty for putting him in that position, but in the end the conversation had worked out into something they both agreed they liked.

"It was a confusing time for both of us," she admitted. "I'm glad you were there to help him keep his head. Otherwise I don't think that conversation would have gone so well."

"We both were cool as cucumbers," the Doctor said earnestly. "Frozen cucumbers."

"Well, I think Angel had thawed a bit," Judith admitted, "but he was 'cool' enough to agree to try something new without worrying about the final outcome, which I think was a big step for both of us."

"Really?" the Doctor said, shocked. "Because I was lying about the cucumber thing."

"Pretty much," Judith shrugged.

"That works?" The Doctor sounded scandalized.

"When you say it enough times to each other and in several different ways," Judith nodded, smiling a little. "And time, of course, helped. We just both needed to settle into it and remember that it's really more than just sex: that as dear friends, we'll take care of each other. We both needed to remember that worrying about the future won't actually help the situation." Judith laughed a little. "I suppose I should take my own advice more often, shouldn't I?"

"Nah," the Doctor said. "I never take my own advice. I leave it all for everyone else that way. It's very selfless of me."

Judith raised an eyebrow. "I see, so advice is limited, then? In that case, would you like to selflessly give some to me, since taking my own is clearly rude of me?"

"It's true. Very few people show the proper concern for the advice shortage. Would you like fresh advice or do you want to recycle the suggestion to not worry from before?"

"Not worrying was my own advice. I'll take the fresh advice, please."

The Doctor humphed. "See? That's why there's a shortage." He leaned back and gave it some thought. "Losing people forever," he started. "Is not going to be easy. It shouldn't be. But what you need to remember is that you always get to take a piece of them with you. As far as I know that's all you get to take from anyone you meet. If there's a moment when you wish more than anything that you could always be with that one person, hold onto that moment. Remember how it smells and looks and sounds. Remembering something like that can be very powerful no matter where you are."

Judith relaxed in her chair, and only just realized how tensely she had been holding herself. "Yes," she said softly. "That's the truth of it all." She let herself sit with the beauty of it a moment longer before saying, "Thank you, Doctor."

The Doctor nodded, giving her a small, sad smile. "It's my pleasure."

"Is that how you cope with it?" Judith asked.

"Sometimes," he said. "When I remember to."

"And the rest of the time?"

"I don't know. You expect me to keep track of things like that?" The Doctor waved the question off like it was a fly. He said it with such perfect nonchalance that Judith was certain it was meant to deflect the question.

"Of course," Judith replied, "although maybe unintentionally. It seems like those might be the moments you'd notice in particular, being the most unpleasant. Unpleasant things tend to stick out in the mind."

"Well human minds are a little unorganized," the Doctor said, looking like he was trying very hard to look like he was more interested in scraping the rest of the soup from his bowl than the conversation.

"I'm sure mine is more organized than yours," Judith said with a slight smile.

"Couldn't possibly be," the Doctor said around his spoon.

Judith tilted her head to one side, considering him. "Doctor, if you don't want to talk about it, just say so."

He sighed and dropped the spoon back into the bowl. "Why do you ask?"

Judith softly replied, "Because we all fall from grace, and I think I could gain a great deal from someone who lives with similar...concerns as I do, only on a much grander scale. It may be a bit selfish of me Doctor, but it comforts me to know that I am not alone, and I thought that you might find a bit of the same."

The Doctor nodded, perhaps to agree or maybe just to acknowledge that he had heard. "I don't have any more good advice," he said slowly. "The rest is just cautionary tales."

"I wasn't looking for advice this time. Just...solidarity. When you don't remember to remember That Moment, what happens?"

"I run," he said. "It's easy to run away and not look back. I do it so much I sometimes forget what I'm running away from."

Judith nodded thoughtfully. "I wonder what you would do, Doctor, if you were like the rest of us without ships to take us anywhere, without an elsewhere to run to?"

"When I can't run?" the Doctor stood up, but made it a point to look in Judith's eyes. "When I can't run, Judith, people get hurt."

Judith tensed again. She nodded. "I understand," she said. "Like a cornered animal."

"No, not like that. I know what I'm doing." He grabbed his bowl from the table and walked it back to the kitchen to deposit it near the sink.

"Well, I guess not all fear is blind."

The Doctor glared at her sink.

Judith stood up with her own bowl and went to the dishwasher. "As I said," she repeated, "if you don't want to talk about it, you only need to say so. But Doctor: I've known Angel for nearly 25 years, now: very well for at least half that, and intimately for more than just the time that we've been...well...intimate. I am not as easily shocked as most people are."

She saw the Doctor relax. His grip on the counter loosened and then he let go to tuck his hands into his jacket pockets. "For once, I don't think I want to compete in the contest," he told her. He smiled an unnaturally wide smile for the current mood. "How do you feel about tea?"

Judith took in a deep breath to reach the Doctor's level, and then also smiled. "I love tea," she replied. "Shall I make us some?"

"Or we could get some...somewhere."

Judith briefly appraised him. She was fairly certain of his true suggestion, but she decided to play dumb just a bit longer and not assume. "That sounds lovely. There's a Japanese teahouse just a few streets over..."

"I have 16th century Japan down the hall."

Judith grinned. "You know, I do think I'm more in the mood for the 16th century today."

"Yes, well, it is quite nice," the Doctor said modestly, nodding towards the hall. Starting to walk, he added, "Of course, we could do something I've never done. I have never - not even once - been to the Tower City on Groll."

"Oh," Judith said, interested, keeping in step with the Doctor. "That sounds intriguing. Why have you never been there?"

"No reason, there's just always been something else. But really, it's a city in a tower. Not multiple towers. Just one, huge, spiraling tower."

Judith smiled. "That sounds a bit like I always imagined Minas Tirith. Though indoors, by the sound of it."

The Doctor tugged open the door to William's old room and waved her inside. "Precisely! Now that you mention it, it even seems a bit suspicious. A good many of the inhabitants do have pointed ears. Maybe we should ask John Tolkien where exactly he was getting his ideas..."

Judith's heart leapt lightly as she entered the TARDIS. "Oh, I would love to meet Tolkien!" she exclaimed.

The Doctor followed her in, gently closing the door behind him. "Or," he said, "we could visit the Grand Royal Ballet in 343434. All of the dancers have five legs. The performance is nothing short of perfection."

Judith's heart leapt again. "Oh yes," she said, following the Doctor up to the console. "Yes, let's go there! I used to dance, did I ever tell you? I trained in ballet, of course, but that was not my forte. I never quite had the body frame for it."

"Nor enough legs," the Doctor agreed with a grin. He bounded up the stairs and threw a switch. "How long did you dance for?"

"I started lessons when I was 5 and danced through college. I was never very competitive-I just loved the elegance of it; even with the more modern, fast-paced styles."

The Doctor finished what Judith assumed was setting the controls for the journey with a flip of a tiny switch near the center column. He spun around and rushed back down the stairs, jumping the last two. "Grand Royal Ballet!" he said, possibly just so he could relish the name. He grabbed her hand and tugged her toward one of the staircases leading up and deeper into the TARDIS. "Come on, this way."

"Where are we going?"

"Wardrobe," he said. "Can't go showing up looking like that. Well, you could, but it would make it very difficult to pass you off as the princess of Galway if you did."

"The...?" Judith tried to wrap her mind around this. "The princess of Galway?"

The Doctor pulled her down a side hall and started down a long, narrow slope that curved ever so slightly to the left. "We could come up with a different title if you like. But it is the Grand Royal Ballet. You can't get in without being, well, royal."

"Oh..." It was all Judith could say for a moment in her awe of the situation. They stopped in front of a huge, ornately-carved wooden door, and Judith felt a little bit like Narnia was on the other side. She had been to the wardrobe before, and it was a vast and magical world that she had only seen a small part of.

The Doctor glanced back at Judith briefly, grinning. She grinned back and said, "In that case, Doctor, I think I would rather be a 'Queen.' It feels more real, somehow."

"Of course," the Doctor said. "Queen it is. It's even very nearly true if you squint a bit. Angel is a bit in charge now, isn't he?" The Doctor turned the knob and pushed open the door.

"Of certain things, yes," Judith replied lightly. "Although I think I would be remiss if I didn't remind you that he's not in charge of parking."

"Well, you're queen enough for me," the Doctor said, perhaps, once again, missing the point on the parking issue. "Now, we're at the top… How about we hop down two floors and see if the dresses are still there? I'd avoid anything orange unless you want to be risqué." He stepped down through the door and onto a spiraling staircase that, as far as Judith could tell from her current position, went on practically forever.

"I certainly don't think that now is the time to be risqué," she said, despite what she'd said earlier about it sometimes being fun to be shocking. "Is it the color orange itself?" There were so many cultural things to learn when one had to consider entirely unfamiliar species. "Perhaps I'll just defer to your-" Judith suddenly glanced the Doctor up and down and decided not to finish the sentence with "fashion sense." Instead, she said, "Er...cultural wisdom."

The Doctor self-consciously straightened his bowtie. "Actually," he said a bit too loudly and headed down the stairs, "it's the color combined with your blue eyes that would put them off...or, um, on, as the case might be. It's a long story, and really, it is a bit of a galactic event so there will be one too many cultures there to actually contend with."

Two flights down, the Doctor stepped out onto a long, curving platform with rows of hangers laden with clothes scattered around with no apparent order. Judith looked around in awe at the range of vibrant colors, some of which she couldn't even name, in tones of jewels, pastels, earths, and everything in between. She didn't know what most of the fabrics were, but as she ran a hand lightly along the row as they passed, she knew they were all wonderful. How would she ever choose?

"Are they sorted by size?" she asked, hoping that would narrow her options.

"That's why we got off on this floor," the Doctor said with a nod, flicking through the racks of clothes as he talked. "Not that things don't get mixed up. It's not terribly organized. What fun would that be?"

"None at all," Judith muttered with just a hint of sarcasm.

"I'm sure it's in some sort of order," the Doctor hedged. He looked around him. "This all seems to be the correct time period too. I suspect that anything on this level would work."

Right..." Judith said. She looked at him. "Well, I suppose I'll be off, then. Is there a changing room with a mirror somewhere?"

The Doctor spun around on his heel and finally decided on a direction headed directly away from the stairs. He shoved several racks out of the way and revealed an alcove with mirrors arranged along the walls at a variety of angles. "There's probably something back there," the Doctor said.

"Ah," Judith said. Normally, the "probably" would have concerned her, but she was learning to trust the Doctor's 'probably's. "Thank you," she said.

"Right," the Doctor said, rocking back a bit and clapping his hands together. "Well, can you find your way back or should I come and collect you?"

"I can find my way, I think," she replied. "Any other last instructions on appropriate dress? I don't like offending people..."

"Nah, you'll do fine...you don't have a tattoo on the back of your left heel do you? No? That's probably for the best. If we get it terribly wrong we'll tell them it's cultural differences. Hard to argue with that." The Doctor turned and headed back to the stairs, where Judith noticed he headed down and not up. "Don't take forever or I'll get bored and start calibrating the central hilink manifold and we'll never get there."

Judith smiled a bit nervously. "I'll do my best," she said, turning to look back down the endless row of ornate dresses, wondering how she could possibly not take too long with so many wonderful options.

"Oh," the Doctor said, jogging back up the stairs so that Judith could see his head. "Hats are two levels down. Hats are cool, you know." With that, he was gone again.

Judith set aside the idea of hats for later. It was simply too much to deal with at the moment. She stared down the aisle, devising a strategy. Judith took a deep breath. She would simply try on the first three that jumped out at her. That was it. Just three.

She set off resolutely down the aisle, running her hand through the fabrics on both sides as she went.

Of course, things didn't quite go as planned. The first dress to catch her attention over the others was a beautiful gold along the sides, but when she pulled it out, the rest of the dress was a much darker, more orangey shade of gold. Judith decided not to risk it and put the dress back.

The third dress to catch her eye was a beautiful sky blue, but the front cut turned out to be much too low for her taste. Judith was reasonably sure that when clothing was involved, there were some styles that were universally risqué.

And the fourth one she just didn't like at all.

Finally, Judith held three beautiful dresses in her arms, and she turned back around to find the dressing room. Her favorite by far, fortunately, was the last one. The best way she could describe it was like an Indian sari, but with more layers of thin, vibrantly-colored, iridescent fabric that flowed like water around her body, and with real peacock feathers woven into the bright-almost glowing (or maybe actually glowing...or were those real butterfly wings?)-green, blue, and purple designs. The hanger had included matching shoes and jewelry for the outfit. Both the shoes (which were delightfully soft) and the jewelry sparkled gently, accenting without overpowering the glowing of the fabric. Somebody around the TARDIS knew fashion, and she was fairly certain it wasn't the Doctor (although his confidence did help pull off the look).

Judith stared at herself in the mirror for a full minute, feeling like she was in a costume for a theatrical dance performance rather than royalty attending a dance performance. She smiled. If tonight she was Queen of Galway, then this was how Galway's royalty dressed. She only wished there was a way to dress her eyes in shadow of matching colors-it had been so long since she's been so dramatically-attired-but the modest part of her told her that this was quite enough.

Judith nodded once in satisfaction and left to find the Doctor. The fabric blew like a breeze around her ankles and she twisted as she walked to make sure she remained appropriately-covered. Somehow, the dress always fell in exactly the right way. In the back of her mind, Judith wondered if it was magic.

It was not difficult to find the way back to the console room, and Judith only briefly wondered why that might be. The TARDIS seemed to be a bit like Hogwarts in that respect.

The room echoed with the familiar grinding noise as Judith stepped down toward the center console. By the time she reached the last step it ended with a sudden, deep thrum. She watched the glass in the column slow to an even pace.

"There you are! Angel said you were punctual. I've never been good at punctual, but I'm beginning to see the benefits." The Doctor appeared from behind the console and Judith took back half of her rude thoughts about his dress sense. She wondered if she should be surprised that he was wearing a coat and tails and found she wasn't surprised at all by the top hat.

The Doctor tapped a final button on the console with his cane, spun it around twice and walked over to meet Judith. "You are absolutely glowing," he told her. "And I'm not just saying that because of the Altraxian jewels." Judith beamed. The Doctor tossed his cane to his other hand and held out an arm to her. "Would her highness care to join me?"

Judith took his arm gracefully. "It would be my honor, Doctor," she said in her best queenly voice. It was pretty good, if she did say so herself. Judith was in an abnormally self-indulgent mood at the moment, and it made her feel just a little bit giddy. Now she remembered why she loved wearing costumes so much.

They headed for the door. As they descended the stairs, the Doctor added, "It actually is a wonderful choice. Very expensive. Royalty always does tend to lean towards the expensive." He paused to switch the cane again so he could pull open the door for her.

"Well, it makes sense," Judith agreed as she stepped out the door, and then immediately forgot what she was going to follow that up with. She stared in awe at the city before her. They seemed to be standing on a balcony or a plateau of some sort, judging by the size of it (though it was all polished marble, so it must have been a balcony), and the city stretched out far beyond, below, and above them. Judith had never seen anything so massive in all her life-and she'd seen the Earth from space.

"These," the Doctor said, his voice quiet like he didn't want to interrupt her thoughts but couldn't help but explain, "are the Royal Cliffs. It is said that the royal family could rule everything that they could see at one time, so the palace was placed on the highest point on the mountain and the thrones of the king and queen were placed back to back at the top of the highest tower so that they could observe all of the land for a thousand miles in every direction. Down below you can see the lights from the largest city and where they cut off is the beginning of the ocean. You can't tell it right now, but the water is actually a rich shade of purple."

Judith let out a wondrous sigh. "Do you think we could see it after the ballet?"

The Doctor checked his watch. "The first sunrise is in about six hours. I think we could occupy ourselves until then."

"How long is the ballet?"

"I don't know," the Doctor said, looking more delighted with each sentence. "How about we go find out? We could get programs!" He turned them around and headed for a small, white path leading up to the castle that sprawled along the top of the mountain. Its curving white walls seemed to find their way around the large boulders in the rocky terrain rather than cut through them.

As they crunched their way up the path they met up with other guests. Well, so Judith guessed. Most of them had five legs and dark green marbled skin that was somehow made more strange by the surprisingly human features of their upper halves. The Doctor's whispered tour told her that these were most of the royal family from the planet that they were on. "Two generations ago the king had thirty-six daughters."

"Thirty-six!" Judith exclaimed. She'd had enough of a handful with just one child.

"He must have really wanted that son. Took thirty-six tries to make him give up. I have it on good authority that his wife was taking something to prevent just that."

"Goodness," Judith muttered. "Royal family politics can be so messy. Should I come up with a scandal to have on hand in case it comes up in conversation?"

"I also have it on good authority that you have on at least one occasion threatened to kill the king of Galway. It must have been an attempt to seize power on your part." The Doctor nodded a greeting to what looked like a passing tree.

Judith laughed. "I thought he was a threat to my son," she explained. "But I suppose that's a good enough story anyway."

"Yes! You had every right to issue the threat. He would certainly have flown into a jealous rage if he discovered that your son was born to another."

"Of course I did," Judith agreed. "Angel is on rather cool terms with William's birth-father. Not like a cucumber this time, and definitely frozen."

"Really?" the Doctor seemed interested at this piece of news, but unsure of the level of truth. "Do they not get along?"

"Not especially. Sam doesn't trust Angel, and Angel...hasn't given him many reasons to, if I'm honest." Which she was. Judith was always honest.

The Doctor clicked his tongue. "That's too bad. Is that difficult for William?"

Judith frowned in thought. "Do you know, we haven't really talked about it all that much. I think that it would have been difficult for him when he was younger, but now that he's an adult he has a bit of a broader perspective on things. Angel and Sam have always been separate in his life, and they seem to be staying that way. I think the most difficult part of having them both at William's wedding was how obviously close Angel and William were and how obviously not William and Sam were. It was awkward watching Sam try to figure them out."

The Doctor took in this information with a nod, but did not comment. They walked on in silence, but not an uncomfortable one. Judith watched the other people as they approached the front gate. Many of them were very different from what she supposed the natives of this planet looked like. There were more of the walking trees from before, something that looked like a bubble encased in a glass shell of a hovering vehicle, and some that looked quite human indeed, but taller and thinner and with deep red unblinking eyes.

As they passed yet another tree person, Judith leaned in and whispered, half-hopefully, "Doctor, those aren't Ents, are they?"

The Doctor grinned. "That Tolkien...really, we're going to have to have a word. They're not shepherds, though. These are actually an evolved strain of some of the trees from your own planet. They don't have a monarchy so you can imagine how well they've established themselves politically and financially to get an invitation to an event like this."

Judith was impressed. "They're...earthlings?"

"Some of them," the Doctor said. "It's a bit difficult to tell which without being rude. There was a great forest expansion across several galaxies in the late 2450's. Much of that involved pushing the evolution of plant life on planets that hadn't managed to do anything for themselves."

"What an incredible feat," Judith said. "I think I'm beginning to see the universe the way you must see it, Doctor. Until now, the farthest I'd been from Earth is Mars-which is the farthest distance possible for the human civilian right now-and, thrilling though the notion is, there really wasn't much on Mars aside from red dust."

"Hope everyone's avoiding the ice..." the Doctor mumbled, almost to himself. "So how's that then? How do I see the universe?"

"With awe and amazement," Judith replied. "Like even the smallest things that happen are a miracle. Forest expansion across galaxies, accelerated plant evolution… Small things, when you think about them, but still incredible."

The Doctor laughed. "You know, that's usually your job."

"What, being amazed?"

"Yes," the Doctor said. "I occasionally convince myself that there is absolutely nothing new or exciting left to see, and when I think that I go and find someone to show it to. All of that wonder is there still, just behind their eyes."

"I don't know how you can convince yourself of that," Judith replied. "The universe is practically infinite, so you would have to spend practically an infinite amount of time to explore it all-squared when you count the practically infinite amount of time." Or cubed? Judith didn't really feel the need to validate her math. Either way, it was a lot.

"I sometimes find that much of the universe is much the same. It's difficult when you go several different places and watch completely different people make the same bad decisions."

Judith frowned. "Oh yes, I see. That would be frustrating. Do they at least make the same good decisions, as well?"

The Doctor looked over at her and Judith wondered if there was something significant in the look. "Sometimes," he said. "But that doesn't make the good decisions seem any less wonderful."

"No..." Judith agreed softly, smiling.

They came upon a huge gate wrought of shining platinum in a thick marble wall. The gate was wide open to welcome the royal guests of the royal family, though several armed guards attended the ornately-dressed doormen checking the tickets of the ballet-goers.

They joined the short line that formed near the guard and Judith listened to some of the conversations that were going on around them. Some of them were almost unintelligible due to the use of terms and topics that Judith had no experience with, but others were very easy to follow. Gossip seemed to be the most popular topic, followed by business topics, and after that travel complaints.

As they stepped up to the doorman, Judith realized that all of the conversations were in English.

The doorman gave them both a deep, but brief bow. "Tickets, please?"

The Doctor patted at his pockets. Judith began to wonder if he hadn't thought about tickets at all until this point, or if he really did have tickets, but had misplaced them. Both seemed equally likely.

"Here we are!" The Doctor pulled out a wallet and presented it to the doorman.

The doorman looked at it like it wasn't what he was expecting, but the expression faded as he looked at the paper. "Very good," he said, bowing again to Judith and the Doctor in turn. "Welcome to the Grand Royal Ballet, Queen Cole, Lord Doctor. If there is anything that I, or the staff can do to make your evening more pleasant, please make the need known and we will attend to it. Also, please be aware that we have guests from five different galaxies in attendance and customs may vary. Please inquire with one of our staff before taking insult or declaring war on one of your fellow guests."

As they walked away, Judith turned to the Doctor, an expression of both awe and disbelief on her face. "Doctor," she said in a low voice, "three completely different questions popped in my head all at once and I don't know where to start."

"Start in the middle," the Doctor suggested, tucking the wallet back into his pocket.

"Very well: what is that wallet you just put away and why did it look nothing like the tickets everyone else has?"

"Because it is nothing like the tickets anyone else has," the Doctor said, looking very smug indeed. "It's called psychic paper. It tells whoever you hand it to whatever you want it to tell them. It's good for getting into things if you don't want to go through the fuss of ordering tickets...or being qualified."

"Or paying," Judith said. She meant it to be terse-after all, it was quite an immoral thing to do, but she was feeling so resplendent and in-character at the moment that the words came out more mischievous.

The Doctor shrugged, "I never really got the hang of money," he admitted. "But, if you think about it, I have saved the universe several times. I think that it's really not too much to ask that I be allowed to take my friends to the ballet every once in a while."

Judith smiled. "I think you're right," she agreed. "My second question-or I suppose it's really my first-is, why is everyone speaking English? It can't be that one tiny language on one tiny planet became the official spoken language of the galaxy. They were even using vernacular from my hometown and time."

"Ah, very good," the Doctor said, sounding very pleased that she'd noticed. They passed through an entry hall that would have held Judith's entire apartment. The stone floors had a strange iridescent way of catching the light that made them seem alive. The Doctor caught Judith's arm and steered her around one of the larger guests while she looked up at the ceiling. "They are not actually speaking English. The TARDIS is translating for you." The Doctor grinned like this was the best party trick he could think of.

"Ohhh..." Judith said in awe. Then she looked up and drew in a soft gasp. The ceiling was intricately decorated with hanging gemstones, glittering more colors than she could name. The guests, each more alien and magnificently adorned than the last, passed around them easily, and the TARDIS translated every small piece of gossip they traded as they passed. Judith looked back at the Doctor. "How incredible. Does it work across great distances?"

"It depends on your definition of great. It will definitely cover us while we're on planet," the Doctor said with casual pride. "Probably the next few planets over as well. After that it would be pretty touch and go. Start translating what you meant to say instead of what you said...not good. The link also breaks when she jumps into the Time Vortex. So it won't work after I drop you off at your house."

"Oh, that's a shame," Judith said. She was distracted again as they entered into the magnificent Great Hall of the castle. "It would have been so useful back at home. More for Angel than me, I expect, but still..."

The Doctor nudged her, "Look," he said, pointing in the direction of his nudge, "Princess Tou. This must be her first outing. No, not him, the one with the butterfly wings. You can tell by the silver tips that she must have just grown them. She was probably all slimy and wormy a few weeks ago." The Doctor grinned. "Also, the TARDIS doesn't really translate for Angel. Vampires have surprisingly strong mental defences. It would actually take a bit of work on both ends for her to be able to make the appropriate connection."

"Oh really?" Judith tore her eyes away from Princess Tou to look at the Doctor again. "That actually makes a great deal of sense. So Angel's practically impenetrable exterior is partly biological?"

"At least partly," the Doctor agreed. His hand found hers and he gave it a light squeeze as they worked their way around a small grove of talking trees."It's not completely impenetrable, though," the Doctor said, his voice oddly earnest, "and his mind is less flexible. If...well, some injuries might be worse for him."

Judith was about to ask him to elaborate when the Doctor lifted their hands together so he could point along her line of vision at a tall, pale man in a shifting black cloak. There was something deeply entrancing about the man, like catching sight of a familiar shape in the darkness, and she couldn't look away until she'd put a name to it.

The Doctor did put a name to it, but she was never quite able to remember what that name had been. With an eager tug, he pulled her away again and continued as if nothing had happened. "The TARDIS does seem to make some sort of connection, at least, when he's inside. Angel's always seemed surprisingly sensitive to me anyway..."

Judith tried to turn one last time to catch a glimpse of the man again, but he had disappeared into the crowd. Turning back, she raised an eyebrow. "Sensitive?" she asked. "Either you mean 'sensitive' in the sense that he is incredibly in tune with mental devices, or you are among the few elite ever allowed a glimpse beyond Angel's exterior."

They were heading into another room now, although the separation between rooms was not always clear given the inconsistent way the ceiling arched and waved above them and the sheer size of some of the doorways. "I think Angel has specifically not developed most of his mental devices. That sort of thing will grow on its own of course, but I don't think he's encouraged it much."

"What sort of mental devices?" she asked. Her eyes caught a royal couple with clothes that seemed to be made of mist and she tried not to stare.

The Doctor shrugged. "I never actually asked what a vampire's fully developed mental capacities were," he said. "But I know that he should be able to do some level of emotional control and possibly some misleadings. Illusions, that sort of thing. None of it would be very nice."

Judith pursed her lips. "That is something I will have to ask him about."

The Doctor twirled his cane thoughtfully for a moment and then glanced sideways at her. "Now that you've mentioned it, it would be odd for him to not have at least a working knowledge of how most of those work. It's probably for the best that it never came up."

Judith's insides clenched nervously. She did not want to be thinking about this right now. She cleared her throat. "Well, Doctor, my third question was not so much a question as it was a request." She paused to give the Doctor enough time to prompt her.

He didn't leave her waiting long. "Yes?" he questioned eagerly, like nothing would make him happier than granting wishes.

"I would very much like to sample some of the fine drinks they must be serving here. One can tell a lot about a new place from their local beverages."

"That, I can do." He spun around twice, apparently looking for a clue to where exactly the drinks were being held. "I think..." he said, pointing to the left, "this way." He walked off to the right, twirling his cane and casually ducking around a herd of jewel encrusted...sheep? They really did look a lot like sheep. "Come along!" the Doctor called back to Judith.

Judith hurried to follow, nearly running into a white-skinned woman with a hoop skirt so large, Judith doubted that they would have been able to touch hands if they both reached for each other. She tried to apologize anyway, but it was lost among the dozens of other apologies exchanging back and forth across the hoop skirt from all directions. By the time she made it to the other side of the skirt, Judith had quite lost the Doctor. She continued in the same direction anyway, hoping that she would catch up with him.

The lights suddenly dimmed and relit, and Judith glanced up with a sinking feeling. Judging by the way the other attendees were beginning to slowly migrate to the dark entrances on her left, that was still the signal to find one's seat. Judith wished she knew where they were sitting.

She also wished she knew where the Doctor had disappeared to. She scanned the crowd, trying to spot the black of his top hat mixed in the bright colors, but with little luck. Of course, she knew that in situations like this you were supposed to stay where you were or ask...honestly, those were the instructions she gave to William when they went to large events and he was six. Still, the approach did seem reasonable.

That, or if she could somehow see above the crowd… Judith looked up. Indeed, there were balconies. Judith took one last glance around and decided to find her way upstairs. At least then she would have a broader view of what was going on.

Judith slipped into the stream of people flowing into the auditorium, keeping to the middle to avoid the ushers showing guests to their designated seats. Once inside, she edged off to the right, where the flickering fire lamps illuminated what would otherwise have been an ominously dark circular staircase. She glanced around briefly-ignoring the part of her that wanted to gape at the elaborate, massive room-and mounted the stairs, taking great care to lift the front of her skirt just enough so she wouldn't step on it.

By the time Judith reached the top of the stairs, most of the guests were either being seated or crowding towards the auditorium. Judith leaned over the railing of the balcony and looked for a black top hat. She didn't see one, but she kept getting distracted by all of the people in the room. Even with their thinning numbers, it was difficult to execute anything like a thorough search.

"Looking for someone?" The voice behind Judith was a woman's, but deeper than normal.

Judith spun around, startled.

The woman was human, and after so many odd faces it was almost jarring (although the size of her hair gave Judith reason to briefly do a double check to make sure it really was hair and not some alien feature on a humanoid face). She was walking toward Judith with a slow, deliberate confidence. She was wearing a long dress with a sash tied around her waist with large, intricate jewelry. Everything was orange. She smiled at Judith, looked over the balcony at the crowds below with a disinterested gaze.

"Y-yes, actually," Judith said, a bit stunned by the orange. Actually, she was so stunned that she forgot to take note of this woman's eye color. Perhaps with some other eye color, orange was downright nunnish? Judith realized that she was staring and also looked out over the waning crowd. "A man with a top hat and cane. We got separated in the crowd and he's holding our...tickets."

The woman sighed as if she'd been expecting this. "Honestly, he needs to learn to keep better track of his friends." She reached up and adjusted one of her earrings. "How about we go find some seats and let him catch up? I find it's better to let him do the chasing some of the time."

"Er..." Judith hesitated. "You know who I'm looking for? By one vague top hat and cane description?" Judith was quite impressed. Or perhaps this woman was telepathic.

"No, I saw you together earlier. I was busy or I would have said hello." She moved her catch (also orange) to her other hand and offered her right one. "River Song."

"Judith Cole," Judith replied, taking River Song's hand. "How very perceptive of you to notice us. I'm sure we're hardly the most ostentatious people here," Judith glanced down at the somewhat eerie sound of clacking talons on the marble floor below them, where two creatures with the bodies of eagles, the scales of rainbow fish, and the clothing of ancient Chinese royalty were making their way into the performance hall. Case in point.

One of the creatures glanced up the stairs as it waited to gain entrance to the performance hall. It did something of a double take at the sight of River, flapped its wings and shuffled a few embarrassed steps away. That answered the question about the orange, too, Judith supposed.

River smiled. "Hmm..." she agreed, "I find that the Doctor finds a way to stick out wherever he goes. Also, you are glowing a bit. It's all a matter of perspective, really."

Judith glanced down at herself. In the dimmer light that she stood in now than in front of the mirror in the TARDIS, she did seem to be glowing more than she originally thought. She smiled. "Yes, of course it is," she agreed, looking back up. "Where do you suggest looking for seats? It's my first time here."

"There is a balcony section just down this hall that is normally reserved for the eldest princess of the land." River said, conversationally. "She's come down with food poisoning, poor dear. I don't think she'd mind. It would be a shame for the best seats in the house to go empty..."

Judith glanced at River. "Indeed," she said after a brief hesitation. "I will follow your lead."

River gave her a grin that didn't look the least bit innocent and turned on her heel to head back down the hallway. A short distance later they stopped at a small, ornate door. River regarded it for a second and then clicked open her catch and pulled out what definitely looked like lock-picks.

"She forgot to give me the key," River explained as she set to work on the door.

"Right," Judith nodded. There was nothing she could do about it, and it wasn't like she had any other assigned seat to go to instead. A small, long-dormant part of Judith somewhere deep in the region of her solar plexus (and definitely related to her reawakening impulsivity) stirred with excitement.

There was a soft click and the door swung open. "There we are," River said, packing everything away.

Judith followed River into the dimly-lit area behind the door.

Once, when Judith was a little girl, her grandmother had given her box tickets to see Swan Lake for her birthday. Judith had felt like a princess sitting on the velvet-cushioned seats in the gold-accented balcony, dressed in the finest outfit in her closet (a bottle-green dress and black shoes that sparkled in direct light-she remembered that vividly).

That box seat was like a cattle stall compared to this. When Judith ran a hand along the fabric of the seats, it felt as soft as rabbit fur and as smooth as a baby's skin. The inside of the box itself was simple, sweeping black marble-Judith guessed to not distract or clash with the stage sets-but when she leaned over the railing to see what the rest of the audience did when they looked up at her, her jaw dropped. Judith could not name most of the inlaid stones intricately depicting a scene from what must be a cultural story, judging by the sheer amount of symbolic images whose beauty and power were not lost on Judith, even if the meaning was. Glancing at the other boxes nearby, Judith could see the continuation of the story and resolved to ask the Doctor about it later. She straightened up and turned to face River.

River was settling into one of the seats, plucking the wrinkles from her dress and adjusting to be sure she'd have a good view of the stage. She glanced up at Judith. "So when are you from?"

"Earth, 2229," Judith replied. "And you?"

"Here and there," River replied. "I spent a good bit of my childhood growing up in the late 1990's and I went to University in 5123. My life is practically linear from there. With exceptions, of course."

"Ah," Judith said. "Another time traveler. Time Lords must not be the only ones who have mastered time, then?"

"Not the way you'd hear him tell it. You should bring up other methods of time travel to him some day. You will never hear the end of complaints. But a girl can find her way around if she puts her mind to it. Vortex manipulators are the easiest and most common way, but you have to...persuade a Time Agent to give you one." River said the word "persuade" almost exactly the same way Angel did sometimes, ending with that tiny smirk. With Angel, it usually intoned something violent, but from the woman clad in orange, Judith guessed that she meant something somewhat different.

"I see," Judith replied. She went to sit down next to River and allowed a moment to marvel at the way the seat molded to her body, supporting in all the right places. She wondered briefly about the possibility and ethics of buying one to take home. "So how did you meet the Doctor?"

River leaned back, taking a breath. "The Doctor," she started, some of the mischief dropping out of her voice, "has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember… But I think my first real memory of him was from 1962. I was very young at the time and had been kidnapped. I called for help and...he showed up. We never actually talked. Not then. But I remember him being the first person who had tried to help."

"A knight in shining armor," Judith said. "What a romantic first memory."

River nodded. "Most of the time I don't think he realizes what that does to people...although I'm not sure what would change if he did realize."

There was a piercing whistle of the sonic screwdriver behind them, and the Doctor pushed into the balcony. "Judith!" he cried. "There you are! And right in the thick of things. We might have to make a hasty retreat. There's some sort of energy weapon that's been charging for at least a half an hour. So we get out, evacuate the building..."

"Hello, sweetie." River said, grinning up from her chair.

"Of course, it's got to be somewhere near here," the Doctor continued in earnest, waving the sonic screwdriver in one hand and obviously trying not to wave the two champagne glasses of deep purple liquid he was holding in the other. "Why are you even up here, Judith? You haven't stumbled on some horrible plot to assassinate all of the royalty within five galaxies have you?"

Judith glanced at River in surprise, but she seemed to have expected the Doctor's reaction. "No," Judith answered the Doctor slowly. Her eyes were still caught on River, and she allowed herself a very small grin. "No, we've just been having a bit of girl chat," she told the Doctor, turning back to him.

"Girl chat?! Judith there is a time and a place for..." the Doctor finally seemed to see River. She waved. "Er..." he said, flipping off the sonic screwdriver. "River, why are you wearing a Neutro Expansion Bomb as an earring?"

"I figured it would be the easiest way to find you." River reached up and adjusted her earring. "You can't go twenty feet without sonicing something and you were sure to pick up the energy and panic. And here you are."

Judith blinked. This was, without a doubt, a woman with a terrifying level of confidence. Judith envied that a little (although not to this risqué-orange-bomb-earring-wearing degree, of course).

The Doctor looked like he was going to burst into giggles. Judith was sure that this was not the appropriate response.

"You also seem to have shown up as Cleopatra. I heard she was here and didn't bother to explain that she was dead...no one ever listens." The Doctor paused for a second and added in a somewhat indignant voice, "Did you steal her entire wardrobe?"

River cocked an eyebrow "I didn't know you had Cleopatra's wardrobe memorized. Should I be jealous?"

"I might have spent six hours in her dressing room hiding from her cat." The Doctor glanced around at the women's expressions. "It was a killer robot cat, alright?"

Judith and River exchanged a look.

"Did it also shoot lasers?" Judith asked innocently.

"No," the Doctor grumbled, obviously not liking the turn in the conversation, "but it had very large, nasty, bitey teeth. You would have hid too."

"I would have shot it," River said.

"Or blown the whole palace up with your earring, apparently. Could you be jealous instead of making fun of me? I've never seen jealous before. It might be more fun."

River smirked. "I'm sure I can think of a way to make it worthwhile."

Judith stood up graciously. "And I think that's my cue to find the ladies room," she said.

The Doctor blinked at her. "What?"

"Sit down, dear." River advised the Doctor, patting the seat next to her. "Sorry, Judith, but really, teasing him is too much fun."

"Of course it is," Judith agreed, glancing over at the Doctor's increasingly-nervous expression, as if the TARDIS couldn't translate female-speak for him. "I've actually never seen him quite so..."

It suddenly hit Judith and she wondered how it had taken her so long to notice. She would have to blame the constant spinning in her head that had only increased in intensity since the Doctor had shown up at her flat. Judith's eyes widened as she stared at the Doctor. "Ohhh," she breathed softly. She tried to ask the Doctor through glance if this River Song was her.

The Doctor blinked at her several times before he seemed to get that she was signaling anything and then he just looked slightly confused. He moved to the other chair and sat down, realized that he was still holding two glasses and stood up again. He offered one to Judith while handing the other to River, who took it with a gracious nod.

"What?" the Doctor finally asked as Judith continued to ask her silent question while taking her glass.

"Nothing," Judith said in that tone that meant that there definitely was something. She took a sip of the purple champagne and was momentarily transported by the taste to a world where fine chocolate grew on strawberries, pears were always perfectly ripe, and cheese smelled as good as it tasted.

River watched the exchange as she sipped her own drink. "Where are we, Doctor?" she asked. Judith suspected that it was timed perfectly to catch the Doctor off guard.

"Ut-" the Doctor stopped halfway through the word and glanced back at River. "My notebook's in my other coat," he said quickly.

"Utah," River said. "The second time, I guess."

The Doctor nodded.

"I see." River stood up. "I stole your drink," she said, softly, touching his arm. "How about I go get you another?"

"I'm fine."

"Yeah, but the show's about to start and you'll miss the beginning." River stepped around the chairs and out through the door.

When she was out of hearing range, Judith turned to the Doctor, sitting back down in her seat. "That's your wife, isn't it?" she asked.

The Doctor jerked his eyes away from the door. "Huh? Er...yes. That's River...she's..." the Doctor sat down again, breathing out a long sigh.

"Lovely," Judith finished. "And fiery." She smiled, "But in a good way. I'm sure you'll be able to keep up with her without much trouble."

"She's wearing a Neutro Expansion Bomb as an earring," the Doctor said, although Judith wasn't quite sure if he meant this as a protest or an agreement or if it had just hit him that this was completely ridiculous.

"Clearly, she wanted your attention."

The Doctor smiled at this. "She keeps vandalizing important historical artifacts for the same reason. Maybe I should answer my phone more..."

"Oh, please do!" Judith said, suddenly alarmed at the thought of artifact vandalism. "I don't know why you wouldn't anyway. Isn't it a bit pointless to ignore it, with someone like her?"

"I can't be expected to sit around waiting for her to call me all day," the Doctor said, waving the idea off.

"Waiting for someone to call and answering it when they do are very different things, Doctor. So if she's a time traveler, does that mean that she might be unaware that you two are married-but-not-really?"

"It could. We usually compare notes when we meet. But she's much older now so she's past that. Also, she guessed Utah-the-second-time. Which means that she's done it both times. Once when she was older and I was younger and once when she was younger and I was dying. And that's when we got married. See?" the Doctor leaned back in his chair, studying the ceiling. "I have a pretty good idea where we're at."

Judith sat down next to the Doctor, not understanding in the slightest, but deciding she didn't need to. "That must be frustrating," she said, "having to establish your relationship over again with each meeting. One of you will always be ahead of the other."

The Doctor continued to watch the ceiling, which was worth watching. The story that covered the walls seemed to continue onto the stonework above them. "It's always amazing how much it doesn't matter. Sometimes it does, of course, but most of the time...we just are." The first discordant notes of the orchestra waking drifted up to them. "I think she enjoys knowing more than me," the Doctor said, sitting up. "Then again, I'm only now getting to be the one who knows anything. Up until recently she usually had most of the cards in the deck."

Judith smiled. "I think you will find that, in a sense, she will always hold most of the cards of the deck."

"She probably stole them," the Doctor said affectionately, "and then hid five aces up her sleeve."

Judith laughed. "Well, she probably did, but you should know that women are born with several extra cards than men." She shrugged. "It's just the way nature built us."

"That is why I normally keep one around. Actually, I think it might be that women are more likely to come along...maybe that's one of the extra cards." The Doctor looked over at Judith. "Why did you come?"

Judith shrugged again. "Who can resist the opportunity to see something few ever have?" She paused. "And you, of course, are an intriguing and marvelous company to keep, if a bit bewildering."

The Doctor smiled and touched his hat to her. "I aim to please. But don't think jumping to another planet is something everyone would do. I've been turned down before."

"Well, it's a bit of a terrifying prospect," Judith agreed. "But if you start by jumping to a different time, it eases the transition a bit. And I don't think that this could ever be my lifestyle, but I do enjoy the occasional vacation, as most people do."

"Is that it then?" the Doctor said, sounding astonished. "I never could figure out, and I was going to ask you actually, if I got around to it. Why time travel? I once told a girl that she could go and see the entire universe. Anything she wanted. She told me that she had to take care of her boyfriend, but I told her I had a time machine and she jumped right in. It can't be because time travel's more comfortable. I'm so...disappointed."

"Well, we're all at least marginally familiar with our own history," Judith replied. "Some of that knowledge is innate; it comes out as instinct and intuition. So time-traveling, especially to the past, is a gentler shock because at least it's still human culture and it's still something of which we have a working knowledge. Jumping to another galaxy for the first trip is… Well, it's a culture shock more jolting than anything we can compare with international travel on earth. The unknown is quite a terrifying thing."

"I know," the Doctor said, but his smile indicated that he seemed to think this was the best part. "Stepping onto something new and unexplored...the feeling is a bit like fear. It starts in your stomach and grows out." The Doctor leaned forward in his excitement. "And that's just walking out the door."

The Doctor looked like he could go on, but the lights slowly died down and he leaned forward. "Oh! Shhh. Here it is," he hushed Judith. She smiled and didn't comment that he had been the one that had been talking.

Though the ballet was three hours long, it felt like a mere 10 minutes to Judith. River returned about a half hour into it and handed the Doctor a drink that had a cherry stuck on the end of a tiny umbrella. "Shirley Temple," she said, settling down next to the Doctor and resting her head against his shoulder.

Judith was in tears by the end of the performance-the good kind of tears. She only marginally understood the plot of the story, but she understood the emotions of it, even though with five legs, the dancer's movements were as foreign to Judith as the planet she was on. She marveled at the universality of emotion; how she could feel such a primal connection with creatures she hadn't even known existed a few hours ago. It gave her hope that, in the end, the universe would be alright.

When the lights dimmed on the stage for the last time Judith leapt to her feet to join in the applause. She suddenly remembered that there were other people with her when they didn't stand alongside her. Wondering if the Doctor could have possibly not been amazed by the performance, Judith looked over at the others to find the Doctor teary-eyed and smiling and pinned under River's sleeping head. Judith smiled and turned back to continue applauding the dancers as they bowed onstage.

"Doctor!" Someone in the crowd yelled. Judith jumped. The voice wasn't very close and she couldn't tell which direction it was coming from, but it sounded angry.

The Doctor's eyes went wide and he slumped in his seat in an attempt to lower himself out of sight that was made completely useless by his unwillingness to take off his rather tall hat. "Umm..." he said in a panicky voice, "maybe we should, errrr, exit. River?"

River stirred, then pressed in closer and fell into a deeper sleep.

The Doctor looked up at Judith helplessly.

"DOCTOR!" the voice yelled again over the enthusiastic applause.

"Doctor," Judith said. "Perhaps we should go? I don't think that voice sounds happy to see you."

"No, not really. I can't imagine why." In spite of his agreement the Doctor seemed to remain unwilling to wake River up. There were several moments where he tried to slide his arm out from under her before he gave up and gave her a tiny nudge. "River," he said, leaning over her, "I think we got to the running bit. You're going to miss it."

River twitched again and blinked her eyes open. "Hello, Sweetie," she mumbled lazily, twisting her head so she could kiss him lightly on the lips. The Doctor met her halfway. "Did you say something about running?" she asked, sitting up.

The Doctor bounced to his feet the moment he was free. "Someone seems to have recognized me," he said, climbing over the back of the chair instead of going around.

"And they're not happy to see you," River said, rolling her eyes and getting to her feet. "Why doesn't that surprise me?"

"I can't imagine why," the Doctor said, peeking his head out through the door to check the hall. "I'm always helpful."

Judith gave a small snort, but if the Doctor noticed, he ignored her. "I hardly think the 'why' matters at the moment," Judith said, backing toward the door.

"Particularly not when we already know the answer," River agreed, striding out into the hall after Judith and the Doctor, who seemed to have decided it was clear. "Most of the time his version of 'help' involves stepping on the toes of every powerful being within a thousand mile radius. I'm surprised we made it through the whole show. Not that way, dear."

The Doctor stopped on his way back towards the stairs. "No?"

"No," River said, "Take the back stairs. That way, the door on the end. Go down three flights, make the first right, the second left, through the locked door, and out through the kitchens." She started walking past the Doctor.

The Doctor spun to look at her and then back in the direction she had pointed. "How? Nevermind, I don't want to know. Where are you going?"

"I have business," River said with a curtsy. "You make a wonderful distraction. Goodbye, Judith, it was lovely meeting you. Make sure he doesn't get into too much trouble, would you?"

"Oh, you know I can't promise that," Judith replied. "But it was lovely meeting you, as well. I hope our paths cross again sometime."

"That would be wonderful. I'm glad that the Doctor's made some reasonable friends."

"Hey!" the Doctor protested.

River blew him a kiss.

Judith took the Doctor's hand and pulled him in the direction that River had indicated, since he seemed to not be inclined to make the best decisions for himself in the moment. Judith thought she should at least try to keep him out of trouble as River requested when it was in her power.

The Doctor resisted for a moment, obviously still torn between fleeing and running after River. He glanced back at Judith and seemed to make up his mind. "Don't blow anything up!" he called after River's retreating back and then turned to pull Judith along down the hall. As they rounded the first corner, Judith heard River's voice calling back, "No promises!"

Doors began opening on their left as they hurried down then curved hall circling the stage, and people-mostly aliens-began streaming out into the hall, thickening each moment. Judith and the Doctor dodged and slipped around bustles, feathers, fabrics, furs, and once, Judith swore, a 12-foot-long cross wrapped in white fabric. All the while, the angry voice shouted after them, accompanied by an occasional stomp! that Judith was fairly certain belonged to the voice.

They finally reached the door at the end of the hall which the Doctor quickly set to sonicing open. As he did, he glanced over his shoulder and winced. "It's the King of Crott," he said and banged his shoulder into the door when it wouldn't unlock. "Don't panic."

Of course, that indicated to Judith that she should panic, but she still possessed enough mental faculties to ignore the comment and keep her head. "What did you do to him?" she asked as the Doctor rammed his shoulder into the door more vehemently. She suddenly wished once again that Angel was with them.

The Doctor slapped the sonic screwdriver against his hand and tried it again. There was a click and the door swung open. Grabbing Judith's hand, the Doctor started down the stairs at a run. "His people had been subjugated for years. There was this small resistance group and they just needed a little...shove. Here!" They set off down a hall to the right.

"Ah, I see," Judith said, peering behind them. She caught a glimpse of an enormous foot before they turned another corner. The smell of the kitchens began wafting toward them. "Is he no longer the king, now? Can you be invited to this ballet if you're ex-royalty?"

"Oh, he's still king," the Doctor said breathlessly. "Just, you know, now he has to take the whole 'public servant' thing into account...it's actually amazing that he managed to make it here." The Doctor dodged around a surprised-looking cook on his way into the kitchen. "Oh! They have halma pastries!" The Doctor slid to a stop, wiggled his fingers over the tray of pastries, and then snatched two off and stuffed them in his pockets. "Judith! What are you standing around for?" he scolded. "We've got to go." With that, he grabbed her hand again, ducked under the arms of a very angry-looking chef and sped off for the exit.

The suns had set while they were watching the ballet, and Judith felt more blind than normal in the utter darkness after the bright kitchen. She was by now no stranger to following the Doctor wherever he might lead her, but that didn't make it any more comfortable. A sudden light poured out from the kitchen door behind them, concealed quickly by what Judith assumed was the King of Crott's massive figure, and she and the Doctor both sped up.

The trip around the back of the castle was a mad rush. By the time Judith could make out the light pouring from the front entrance of the castle she was breathing hard and praying that she didn't twist her ankle with each step. They rounded the final corner, and the Doctor slowed as they waded into the crowd of guests. "We're never going to outrun him all the way to the TARDIS," the Doctor said, leading her behind a guest seated in a very large hovercraft of some sort. "What we need is..." the Doctor's face lit up. "This way."

They wove through the guests until Judith found herself standing in front of the doorman for the second time that evening.

"Yes, hello," the Doctor said, to the bowing man, "I seem to recall being told to contact you about any cultural difficulties that may have arisen throughout the evening."

The doorman was very good, but Judith caught him heave the slightest sigh. She suspected it had been a very long night for him. "What can I assist you with sir?" he asked.

"It seems that there may have been some stolen pastries and I told that man over there that I am quite put out by that sort of nonsense." The Doctor pointed over the crowd at the approaching grey mountain. "And he seems to have taken it rather personally. Might you have a bit of a chat with him? Tell him I'm terribly sorry, but I can't tell him myself as I have to leave at this very moment. No, no, I'm sure you're up to it. That's a chap. Well, I'll leave you to it. Ta!"

With a tip of his hat, the Doctor was off again, dragging Judith behind him by her hand as she smiled at the simple brilliance of it. It had been a long time since Judith needed to be so agile on her feet, but she thought she managed rather well, especially in such a long dress. She sincerely hoped it wouldn't be ruined after all of this.

They dashed past the guards at the gate and past the array of vehicles beginning to arrive, ranging from motored to flying to animal-drawn. Judith tried not to stare at the one of the airborne ones coming in for landing that seemed to be pulled by a real phoenix.

The TARDIS seemed to be closer going back than it had been going out, and soon enough as they rounded a curve in the path, it stood before them, the small light on top glowing like a beacon of hope, drawing them back. The Doctor unlocked the door and pulled her through, slamming it behind them and then dashing up to the console so quickly Judith hardly had time to process his movements. She was used to it with Angel, and followed the Doctor up the stairs to collapse in the chair, breathing heavily.

The Doctor threw a single switch and the TARDIS ground to life. He seemed satisfied with this and turned to Judith, pulling a pastry from his pocket. "You really should try them," he said, like they hadn't been running for their lives. "They're wonderful. And the recipe is top secret. I can't get a single person to tell me how they're made."

Judith looked at the pastry a bit incredulously. She could barely swallow a breath, much less a pastry. She took it nevertheless, but waited until she could properly enjoy it. "That must drive you insane," she said in the meantime.

The Doctor leaned his cane against the console. "What?" he asked, inspecting his own pastry from all sides like it was a diamond.

"Not knowing something," Judith replied. The scent of the pastry drifted up to her nose as the TARDIS shuddered with movement. It was intoxicatingly buttery, slightly sweet, and with something close to almond, part-pecan, a hint toward nutmeg, and largely something she had never smelled before.

"A bit, maybe," the Doctor admitted, licking the side of his pastry. "I like a good mystery though. Maybe it's what they're baking it in that gives it that tang. Did they have copper baking tins? Did you notice?"

"I'm afraid I didn't, this time," Judith said. "I was rather focused on not getting caught by a giant king. Perhaps next time I'll remember to check."

"Shame," the Doctor said, finally taking a bite and chewing slowly. "Maybe River noticed when she was in the kitchen. If she was in the kitchen. I'll have to ask."

"Yes, speaking of," Judith said. She fixed the Doctor with a look before continuing. "I would not have immediately guessed that you would be attracted to her, but I think I understand what you see in her."

The Doctor smiled, obviously pleased that Judith approved. "I don't think I would have guessed either," he admitted. "But things like that sneak up on me. Most of the time it turns out sort of terrible."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Judith said. "You're still here and on the whole happy, so how terribly could things have turned out, really?"

"Not like-" the Doctor waved his hand and then decided to occupy that hand with pressing buttons. "I travel with people a lot," he said, starting again. "It's more fun with people. But a lot of the time they think it means something...not that it doesn't. They're lovely. And then I don't notice. Why don't I ever notice? Not that that matters too much, because then I tend to ignore it and hope it goes away."

"Doctor," Judith said, trying not to use her mother-instruction tone, "you're using too many pronouns. What is 'it'?"

"Nothing," the Doctor said quickly. "Nevermind. It's stupid." He shoved the rest of the pastry into his mouth.

Now Judith fixed him with the look she gave Angel or William when they needed to start explaining now. "Of course it's not stupid," she said gently. She found that speaking gently when giving the look tended to ease her target just enough. "Tell me what it is."

The Doctor ducked his head. "They keep trying to snog me," he mumbled finally.

Judith stifled a chuckle. "That doesn't sound so bad," she smiled. "Are they at least good-looking?"

The Doctor snatched up his cane so he could point it at her. "That," he said, "is the problem with humans. How should I know? You expect me to pay attention? And I can't imagine it being worth messing up a perfectly good traveling relationship either way."

"Well, no, probably not," Judith agreed. "But I imagine it would ease the sting at least a tiny bit. Do Time Lords really not notice such things, though, or have you purposefully blinded yourself to it?"

The Doctor shot her a hateful little glance that Judith took as a sign that they were getting somewhere. "It's just not much of a priority," he said. He seemed to consider his own words for a moment, "Somewhere near petting cats. Maybe a bit lower, depending on the day."

"So Time Lords do sense attraction in others. What am I saying, of course you do, or your relationship with River is completely false. So it must be that you were never attracted to your traveling companions in the same way. I understand." Judith finally took a bite of her pastry. It was as magically-heaven as the champagne.

"No," the Doctor started and then seemed to realize what he said and added a definite, "Yes. That. That's probably it."

"Which one was she?" Judith asked. "Or were there more than one? Ah..." Judith paused. "Perhaps the real question is, How often has this happened?"

"Romana doesn't count," the Doctor said, pointing a warning finger at Judith.

Judith raised an eyebrow.

"She doesn't," the Doctor tried again, sounding less sure. "She never actually did try to snog me and that excludes her from the conversation. And," he continued, "she kept reading the TARDIS manual at me which was just plain annoying, so I shouldn't have mentioned her at all."

Judith was getting good at picking her conversational battles by now. "Alright, so Romana's excluded. Of course. It doesn't quite make sense to me when the question was about who you've been attracted to in return, but we'll let that one slide. Continue."

"Not anymore," the Doctor said proudly, "I had to toss the manual into a sun to get Romana to stop."

"Not the manual, Doctor," Judith sighed. "I will get you to crack on this, just you wait."

The Doctor shoved his hat forward in a determined manner. "This is what I was talking about," he groused. "We could be going anywhere and doing anything and all you want to talk about is whether or not I fancy girls and how many and where."

"Honestly, Doctor, I couldn't really care how many girls and where-you learn to stop asking with Angel-but clearly there is a part of this that bothers you, and that is what I care about. Is the problem with you becoming attracted to your companions, your companions to you, or both?"

This seemed to deflate the Doctor somewhat. He walked over to the chair where Judith was seated and settled onto the floor with his back to her and the chair. "I just can't," he said, "and they shouldn't."

"I understand," Judith said. She did. Very much. "But you did anyway."

The Doctor rubbed the spot over his eyebrow. "And it was a terrible idea."

"Is River a terrible idea?"

The Doctor grinned. "River is a particularly terrible idea," he said affectionately. "She was raised to kill me, you know. I think I'm becoming a masochist."

"I think someone in your position would almost need to," Judith replied. "And I can understand the allure more than you might think." That was one of her own personal struggles (something about it coming up a lot this past year). "So River is a terrible idea: you don't seem upset by it like the others upset you."

"The thing about River," the Doctor said after a pause, "is that she is, in many ways, the mistake I've already made. It's hard, sometimes, knowing how she dies, but the rest of the time...it's safe."

Judith nodded slowly, finishing the last of her pastry and carefully brushing the crumbs off her miraculously intact dress. "It's already over with, so why fight it?" she said softly. "But Doctor, when you think about it, aren't they all 'over with,' in a sense? When it comes to time, isn't it all happening at once, and thus, it has all already happened?"

"Time is not actually a simultaneous thing," the Doctor said, "If you picture the ocean, even though it is one thing it's never the same. Even if you were swimming in one point, that point would keep moving."

"Alright," Judith said. "Even so, what is the difference here, really, except that you've seen the ending? Pick any one of the others: if you had seen the ending with them, too, would you still have done it?"

"It's not actually much like an ocean anyway," the Doctor said, "just thought it would help." He glanced back at Judith and then away again. "The difference is," the Doctor said, "that she didn't hate me at the end."

Judith was silent for a moment, feeling the tragedy of that statement. Finally, she said, "That's difficult to argue with. But for Evie and me, the time before the end was worth it, even though it is too easy to convince myself that she hates me eternally for what happened." Although Evie had been her best friend and not her lover (just as painful in a different way), the way she had died was partly Judith's fault, in a complicated way. Judith's guilt had convinced her that Evie would hate her for it; Judith's therapist had helped her break the more destructive aspects of that cycle, but it wasn't gone completely, all these years later.

"It seems silly to waste an entire afterlife hating someone," the Doctor said. "Was what happened really that horrible?"

"Yes, especially because it was my fault. But you're avoiding the question, Doctor."

"As are you," the Doctor said, pulling off his hat and spinning it in his hands. "It is, for me, a trade off. I think, longer ago, I actually might have, if I had been braver. I probably should have kissed Romana, even if she would have slapped me for it. But now? Honestly? My hearts can only take so much, Judith."

Judith nodded slowly. "I wonder why nature created immortals?" she said. "Since I do agree that there is only so much one can take. It seems...nonsensical."

"Nature abhors immortals," the Doctor said, rolling the hat up his arm and back onto his head. "It'll go to pretty great lengths to get rid of them, actually. Or force them onto a different plane. I'm not immortal, though, if that's what you meant. Just very old."

"It's the same in the end, isn't it?" Judith asked. "You still have to live a very long time loving people who are only here a short while."

"No," the Doctor pushed himself to his feet. "Loving people is what makes it bearable."

"Oh yes," Judith agreed. "I forgot my own point. You still live a very long time losing people, then."

"But that is my own fault, isn't it?" The Doctor wandered back over to the console. He brushed his fingers along the surface for a moment and then turned back to Judith. "You forget, I wasn't created in a vacuum. I had a people, all of whom would have lived just as long as me. Some of them longer, probably. I tend to blow through lives rather quickly."

"But you're not the only very-long-lived creatures in the universe," Judith replied. "I wouldn't necessarily recommend vampires as a good choice for a romantic interest-generally speaking, of course-but for example..."

"Judith," the Doctor said in a scolding voice. "You know I'm married and now you're suggesting I go find someone else?"

"Absolutely not," Judith replied. "But you know how it ends with River, and you presumably go on. I'm sure I don't have to tell you that it's quite proper to have more than one lover if it's not all at once. Unless you're poly, of course."

"But not really something I have to plan in advance for," the Doctor said.

"No," Judith agreed. "But something you can nudge, anyway. For instance, why not choose an immortal as a traveling companion, just in case?"

"I've had one," the Doctor said, his tone suddenly casual. "And he was the real deal too. Actually incapable of death. I think we had a falling out, but I wasn't actually there for most of it so..."

Judith frowned. "I don't know how you keep track of your life, Doctor. I think it would drive me insane not to know so many things about so many relationships for so long."

"I have a highly developed brain," the Doctor said, without the slightest hint of humility. "On Gallifrey, they used to have a field that prevented you from showing up out of order. And off world you could place yourself in relationship with another Time Lord by saying 'hello.'" The Doctor looked back at Judith, "Sometimes I miss having enough tenses so much I can feel it in my liver."

Judith smiled. "Yes, I supposed you'd have to have extra tenses, wouldn't you?"

"Three hundred and seventy-two," the Doctor said. "Would you like me to drop you off now, or in the morning?"

Judith, who was still marveling over the idea of three hundred and seventy-two tenses, took a moment to answer. "Now, I think," she replied. "It would be in line with my internal clock. Though you should stop by more often, Doctor. I do enjoy your visits."

The Doctor hummed noncommittally and made a few adjustments on the console.

"And perhaps sometime," Judith continued, "you could teach me a bit of Gallifreyan. I love languages."

The Doctor paused. Judith watched his face become an expressionless mask for a moment and then it cracked off in favor of a mischievous smile. "Pick a word," he said.

Judith took her time. Choosing words was very important. Finally, she said, "Death."

"When?" the Doctor asked, digging in his pockets.

"The final one."

The Doctor triumphantly tugged out a pad of paper and went digging again. "Yours or someone else's?"

Judith hesitated before she decided. "Someone else's."

"Are they already dead, from your perspective?"

"Yes."

"Were you there?"

"Oh good heavens, Doctor," Judith sighed. "Is there really a tense for that?"

The Doctor pulled the hat back off his head and pulled a pen out of it. "Of course," he said, sticking the hat back on. "It matters if this is your timeline as well as theirs. If it was a thing that happened to both them and you. Their death and your experience of it. I think there is a great difference between hearing someone died over the phone and holding their hand while it happens."

"Yes," Judith agreed softly. "And no. It's still a shock, and it's still death. Well, if I must choose, then yes, I am there for it."

The Doctor paused in the action of licking the end of the pencil. "Ah," he said, "I see. I can guess the rest. You were involved and it continues to impact you in the present."

Judith cleared her throat gently. "There was more than one, actually. But since you've guessed the first one accurately enough, go ahead. What's that word in Gallifreyan?"

The Doctor was focused on writing on the pad. "My handwriting's terrible," he admitted. "Let me get it right..."

Judith waited patiently in silence.

The Doctor nodded once in satisfaction at the paper and then ripped it from the pad. He tucked the pad and the pencil into his pocket again and walked over to kneel beside her. "This is," he said, holding up the paper so she could see it, "completely illegal."

Judith glanced up in surprise. "Is it really? Why?"

"It's easier to be superior and pompous if no one can even speak your language," he said.

Judith laughed. "I appreciate your humility, then," she said, and took the paper. She stared in wonder at the circular, almost clock-like letters. "How do you pronounce it?" she asked.

The Doctor traced his fingers along the letters, which were, at their most simple, two interlocking circles, as he said the word. Judith thought that it was the most beautiful word she'd ever heard for death, and she'd heard quite a few. It wasn't lonely or harsh the way the word was in English, and it had the same resounding finality like the very last note in an orchestral piece. Judith actually had to clear her throat again to repeat it back.

The Doctor said the word again, obviously attempting to correct some mispronunciation. "The middle bit's important," he added, pointing to where the two circles met on the paper and repeating a middle syllable.

Judith said the syllable and then the entire word again. She glanced up at the Doctor to see how she was doing.

"A bit more like a Spanish L than an Italian one," he suggested and repeated the word again.

Judith took a moment to think about the difference in her mind and tried once again.

When she looked up at the Doctor this time, he had closed his eyes. "That," he said, with a bit of a chuckle, "is how you should say it. I refuse to teach you a better pronunciation when you are doing a lovely impersonation of a Lower East Slope accent."

Judith frowned. She was not so convinced; she always strived for perfection in pronunciation (often to a fault, she had to admit). "Why is that so lovely? I like being exact with my pronunciations."

The Doctor didn't open his eyes. "Say it again," he requested.

She did, and then paused. "Doctor..."

He reluctantly opened one eye to look back at her. "Sorry," he said. "We can do the High pronunciation if you want."

Judith stared at him a moment. "Tell me about the Lower East Slope," she said.

The Doctor closed his eye again. "The slope it refers to is the East slope of the mountain of Solitude. It was the side facing away from the city and was occupied largely by farmland. There were whole families who didn't have a single member make it into the academy. I had a friend, as a child, who had that accent when he got in. Spent much of his study time the first year getting rid of it."

"If it's so lowly, then why do you like it so much?"

"Because I miss that friend and who he was when he sounded like that."

Judith watched him carefully. "He must have been a very good friend," she said. "Tell me about him."

There was a long pause where the Doctor sat very still, a slight smile played across his mouth and then disappeared back into his neutral expression. At the end of the silence, the Doctor said, "No."

Judith continued to watch him, though now also with a gentleness along with the scrutiny. After a moment, she asked softly, "Should I say it again?"

"No," the Doctor said, this time more quickly. "It doesn't do to dwell in the past, Judith." He stretched his long legs before climbing back to his feet. "And I have used that word far too many times already. And my friend even more. Although it was a slight variation on the one I taught you."

"I think using the word once is too many times already," Judith said. "I should have picked a happier word."

The Doctor tucked his hands into his pockets and studied Judith for a moment. "I think it was a good choice," he said, slowly. "And very you. You like to get to the center of things don't you? And death is often just that."

"It was the first word I ever learned," Judith replied. "It seemed appropriate for that reason, as well."

"Your poor parents," the Doctor said in a voice that might have been intended to be under his breath. He coughed and turned back to making adjustments. He threw the same lever that he had used when they had left and there was a slightly louder final thrum.

"It was innocent enough at the time," Judith replied. "I had wandered outside and found a baby bird under a tree that had fallen out too early. I only vaguely remember it now, but it turned out to be...prescient."

The Doctor was watching her again. Judith wondered if he looked at everyone with the same level of intensity. She looked back in his eyes as she did with everyone and had the feeling that there wasn't just one, but multiple levels of thought happening behind his eyes and that every one of them was focused on her.

"In Gallifreyan," the Doctor said, slowly, "the word for death is very similar to the word for wisdom."

The corner of Judith's mouth twitched in a brief smile. "That makes perfect sense to me." She paused. "Is that true for every version of the word?"

"Nearly," he said.

"What kind of death does not bring you wisdom?"

"The kind my friend was so fond of," the Doctor said, and started down the stairs. "Come on, we've landed."

Judith hesitated, but then stood up, the ethereal peacock dress falling once again around her ankles. She had almost forgotten she was even wearing it. Following the Doctor's lead down the stairs, Judith said, a little more cheerfully than normal, "You'll have to come back soon so that I can return this dress to you." Normally Judith would have insisted on returning it immediately to the place she found it in the wardrobe, but she sensed the end of their visit was more imminent than that.

"I wasn't planning on wearing it," the Doctor said, matching her cheerfulness easily.

Judith laughed. "No, I don't expect you were." She also felt that this was not the time to bring up any other female companions again. They stopped by the door.

"Thank you, Doctor," Judith said. "The ballet was a dream for me, really, and I do enjoy our talks." She gave him a small smile and a kiss on the cheek.

The Doctor smiled back. "Thank you, Judith," he said, tugging open the doors. "You are, as always, quite marvelous."

"Yes, well," Judith said as she stepped out the door, "I-" but she stopped mid-sentence at the sight of Angel leaning against the wall of her living room - where they'd landed - arms crossed and glaring at the Doctor behind her.

"Hello, Angel," the Doctor said with the same false cheer that he'd been using moments before. "How long have you been standing there?"

"A while," Angel replied, his tone light, but terse. Judith thought that it might be time for her to step in.

"Angel," she said gently, approaching with a hand outstretched to touch his arm.

Angel glanced at her briefly, glared back at the Doctor, then turned back to Judith, his jaw dropping slightly. "Wow," he blinked. "Where did you go that called for that?"

Judith looked down, as well. The peacock feathers glowed slightly in the dim apartment. She looked back up. "The Grand Royal Ballet in the year 343434," she replied, grinning broadly.

The Doctor nodded eagerly. "She wanted to go to 16th century Japan," he said, "And I thought that no, better not, since Angel wouldn't like me dragging his girlfriend off to a war zone, so I suggested a nice, safe, ballet."

Angel glanced at Judith. "How long until something bad happened?"

The Doctor tried to make discrete signals at her while Angel was looking at Judith's dress.

"Oh, not until after the performance was over," Judith said cheerfully. "It was a stunning show, Angel, you should have been there. It was only for royals, you know."

Angel glanced between Judith and the Doctor, seeming to try to decide how much he really wanted to know. "And you were...?"

Judith smiled. "According to the certification of the Doctor's psychic paper, the Queen of Galway."

Angel tried to conceal his own small smile. "Of course you were. And the Doctor?"

"The Doctor," the Doctor said with a smirk, "Lord of Time."

"Ah..." Angel said with the tone that he should have guessed. "And after the performance?" he glanced back at Judith. "You're alright?"

"Of course," Judith replied. "I look fine, don't I? A bit of running did me good, I'm sure."

Angel scrutinized her, gave the Doctor one more hard glare for good measure, and then sighed in a way that Judith knew that he was done fighting it.

His concern was sweet, really. It made Judith feel cared for, and his relenting after seeing that she was happy and safe kept the concern from being stifling. It was just the level of closeness that she was enjoying with him: involvement with each other closer than normal friends, but still independent and content with that. The space that he gave her by backing off allowed her to move toward him more freely, both emotionally and (as she was currently doing) physically.

While kissing outside the context of sex was steadily becoming more normal in recent months, kissing in front of other people was not. But as Judith raised herself on her toes to gently kiss Angel, she thought that the Doctor would understand, given all they had talked about tonight.

Angel's hands found the light, soft fabric of her dress around her waist and he pulled her in closer; she wrapped her hands gently around the back of his neck instead of pulling back like she'd intended. Judith was usually aware of other people in the room whenever she kissed anyone; indeed, she preferred to keep moments like this private for others' sake as much as her own. But there was something about that moment in particular that made it very difficult to remember that the Doctor was there at all, much less consider his own comfort as she pressed herself even closer to Angel. Perhaps the impulsivity of the evening was still orchestrating events.

Judith didn't pull away until she heard the sound of the TARDIS engines start up behind her.

Judith turned and she and Angel watched the TARDIS fade from sight, sorry that they didn't even say goodbye. She was just wondering when they'd see that magical ship and the strange and wonderful Doctor again when Angel turned her back around, catching her lips with his.

Considering everything, Judith smiled against his mouth and let that thought slip away for now.

---

AN: Thanks for reading! If you thought that one was cute...the next one won't be.

(Because Angelus.)