5. What's the Doctor doing?
The Doctor presses plenty of buttons as information streams onto, then off the screen.
He pauses to ponder. When should I tell Chloe and Devyon their house has been destroyed?
He can do nothing to avert it... But there are countless other distractions to divert them from discovering, at least for a little while.
"She'll have gone home. I know our Alyssa," Devyon says.
"Dad's right," Chloe concurs. "We should go to Tinsel."
The crunch point has arrived much earlier than the Doctor would have preferred.
"When should we arrive?" he tries to divert them in time.
"Just after we left to go to the party," Devyon says practically. He plans to go home and simply wait.
"Ah, erm, no, no, no," the Doctor fusses. From the information he's briefly seen on the screen, any such plan would mean certain encounter with whatever destroyed their house. He must try to avert such a disaster! At least for now.
The Doctor presses plenty of buttons and appears to press a few randomly, very obviously without looking - adding random miniscule adjustments to the exact positioning of the Tardis without changing the deliberately selected date... adequately after the destruction of the house.
Chloe watches him suspiciously. He doesn't normally act like that! She resolves to ask him about it.
"Ready?" the Doctor says cautiously.
Then he pulls the dematerialisation lever...
The screen shows the destroyed house. The Doctor winces as he sees it, then he looks at the other two; father and daughter, perhaps for the first time understanding what it can be like to be undefended by anyone.
"We're not in the right place," Devyon says. He's straight into denial! .
Chloe looks closely at the location; she knows it well, then at the date. Then she knows their house was destroyed during the previous week. It's only a week since they were happily at home preparing for her party...
"I'm sorry," the Doctor says quickly. "It's not something I can fix. It's a fixed point in time and it cannot be changed. There's plenty I can change, but... not this, unfortunately. It's just as well everyone was out!"
"We must be in the next road," Devyon says. "Can we go out and check?"
"Yes, let's," Chloe says. She can see that her father needs to verify things for himself.
Devyon walks to the Tardis door. "Do we go out here?" he asks.
"Yes, let's go," the Doctor confirms.
It's a sunny day.
They step out onto a litter-strewn lawn. Chloe has tears in her eyes as she notices some sentimental things from their house. She picks up a few things and pockets them carefully before dashing after her father who is heading along their road.
"Someone's been changing the road name signs," he says, refusing to contemplate the destruction of their house. .
"Look, there's our next-door neighbour's house," Chloe prompts. Surely her father will desist in his denial.
"It looks like our neighbour's house but is it?"
"There's only one way to find out," Chloe says, walking up to their neighbour's front door and knocking.
Shortly a man with a florid face appears at the door, panting.
It's their neighbour, Alan.
Devyon's denial starts to evaporate.
"Have you seen what's happened to our house?" Chloe asks.
"No, why, what's happened?"
"Come and see."
Alan accompanies them with difficulty as he's very unfit. Devyon sighs and tries to recall what he knows of their neighbour. He knows that Alan works remotely, predominantly from home, and has a higher stress job than he had!
"How's your job going?" Devyon asks gently. "Still working from home?"
"Yes," Alan says. "It's going fine." .
When they come into sight of their house, Alan is shocked. "What happened here?" .
"I was hoping you might have heard something," Chloe says hopefully.
"Not a thing!" Alan says. "When I go to bed I go out like a light... But I was woken by some thunder last night." .
"Probably your house falling down," the Doctor says despondently, itching to chase the culprit rather than view the mess .
They're unlikely to find out anything more from Alan, but he's served Chloe's purpose.
Her father, Devyon, now acknowledges that it is their house that's been solely destroyed in the area. He starts contemplating what the house insurance company will say when his is the only dwelling destroyed by some unknown force. They're likely to be rather sticky about it. .
The Doctor breaks into his thought train. "We shouldn't dwell on this too long. Let's go!" .
They start to enter the Tardis.
"That's not big enough for all of you," Alan says. .
"It's bigger on the inside," Chloe replies, intending to fob him off. .
But Alan's interested and wants to see for himself, particularly as he's just felt in his pocket and realised - he's locked himself out of his own house! His lack of keys in his pocket signal a big problem for him! Maybe his neighbour might provide him with food and drink? .
The Doctor bars his way. "Sorry, Sunshine, you're not coming with us." They've enough problems to solve without adding to them. .
"But I've locked myself out..."
"Alright, just one journey." .
Alan hadn't been wanting a journey, just a little food and drink; somewhere to be while he thinks how to solve his difficulty, so he trots into the Tardis. He's amazed at the size of it and the decor.
The Doctor goes straight to the Console and taps plenty of buttons, observing their likely landing area in Alan's house on the Console screen.
A loud grinding noise later and the Doctor's trying to persuade Alan to head towards the door.
"But I'm still locked out and I haven't had anything to eat yet!" .
"You're at home now," the Doctor tries to persuade him gently.
But Alan still firmly believes he's outside his house and locked out. Chloe opens the Tardis door for him to see the inside of his house. "Go on, then, how did that happen?" she cajoles Alan. "Come and see!" .
Alan steps out of the Tardis into his own living room. "How did that happen?" .
"I'd take more water with it!" the Doctor instructs him, closing the Tardis door quickly. .
"Do we try to chase after Alyssa, or do we simply wait here?" the Doctor asks.
"Not actually here in Alan's lounge!" Chloe prompts, "but we should wait. Alyssa will be back here. Maybe we can track forwards in time to save on the boredom of just waiting?" .
Having moved the Tardis to a suitable place to observe Chloe's lawn, the Tardis grinding noise rumbles on, disturbing Devyon who isn't used to it at all.
Shortly, they see Alyssa's Tardis materialise, but with Trelim on the outside. Trelim steps away from the Tardis for a moment and it disappears leaving Trelim alone on the littered lawn.
But then the Tardis is back. Trelim clings onto it before it disappears... along with Trelim.
"They've found the dematerialisation lever, then!" Chloe declares. .
The Tardis then re-appears with Trelim desperately trying to pick the lock!
Then the Tardis disappears, reappearing a few moments later without Trelim!
"I wonder where they left Trelim?" the Doctor says stoically.
"Wherever they picked him up from, probably," Chloe says practically, but, perchance, incorrectly.
They see Alyssa set out walking with Meran.
"I'll go and wait for them in that Tardis," Chloe says. "And I'll keep an eye out for Trelim!"
She sets out for the other Tardis and the door opens to her touch. She decides she'll go somewhere in the Tardis to wait for them to return. The sleeping quarters seem an obvious choice... .
Chloe wakes up much later! She's had a very busy and stressful day and she had needed that sleep!
She wanders through to the Tardis Console room. There's no-one about. She looks at the monitor screen to see where they are, fully expecting to still be on Tinsel.
To her horror, the screen shows Cyberium One, the central planet the Cybermen operate from! .
What has happened?