"London, Earth in the Early twenty-first century," I said as I stepped out of the TARDIS in front of the Doctor and took a quick look around. "I've suddenly realized that you do that to sound smart."
"You also usually ask," he pointed out dryly as he pulled the door shut behind us before holding a hand to me.
"That is not the point. Why are we here?" I asked as I slid my hand into his outstretched one. He shrugged while winking at me and I shook my head with a smile. "Why do I even bother asking?"
"Because sometimes I manage to have an answer to that question," he said, and I laughed.
"So, we wander around until we find trouble?" He laughed at my question.
"What makes you think we're going to do that?"
"Precedent," I said smugly which made him laugh again. As soon as he was done laughing, I swooped in to kiss him and he gave me a confused look when we separated. "No reason. I just wanted to."
"Well then my darling trouble magnet, shall we?" The Doctor asked as he twisted our conjoined hands to press a kiss to my palm with a deep loving look in his eyes.
"Firstly, pot kettle. Secondly, trouble magnet is definitely a pet name and we agreed no pet names," I said.
"I am not a trouble magnet," he protested, and I raised an eyebrow up at him.
"You are the biggest trouble magnet I've ever met. Which is saying something because I am one myself," I said. His face pinched slightly.
"Well," he drawled out and I grinned widely, but clearly, he wasn't ready to give me the win because he continued. "It's not like I go looking for trouble."
"Neither do I. And yet." I gave a careful, pointed shoulder shrug. "I seem to be a bit of a magnet for trouble."
"Fine Emma you win," he said with an overdramatic groan which was instantly negated by the smile he gave me when I did a little dance of victory. I was still grinning when my phone rang, and the Doctor simply rolled his eyes at me fondly before leaning forward to give me a kiss to the forehead as I answered my phone.
"Hello."
"Hello Emma. How are you?" Kate asked and I smiled.
"Kate! Good thank you. Yourself?"
"I'm afraid I have a bit of a strange request," she said. I gave the Doctor a knowing look and got a confused look in return.
"You want to speak with the Doctor," I said and held the phone out to him.
"Kate," he said hesitantly into the phone before falling silent and his confused face slowly melted into a frown. "You've been having what?! Yes, we are in London. The Tower? Certainly."
"So, what's happening?" I asked as the Doctor handed me my phone back and spun us back towards the TARDIS.
"Something odd," he said as his frown deepened, and I sighed.
"You know I'd put that much together by myself thanks. I thought that the Tower was TARDIS proof," I said as I pulled the door open.
"Kate and I came to an agreement after we visited the other world," he said.
"You did?" I asked in surprise. "Where was I?"
"That meeting you had to do for work a few months ago," he said, and I blinked at him in shock.
"Should I ask?" He looked at me for a few very long seconds before he busied himself with the console.
"I let the Black Archive remain TARDIS proof in exchange for the removal of the security protocol. Kate agreed and even said that some of the Tower of London would allow for landing, since it's UNIT's headquarters these days," he said, and I frowned to myself in confusion as I walked up next to him.
"Okay that doesn't explain why you won't look at me right now." He swallowed.
"I went over her head, got the Brigadier involved. Wasn't exactly my best moment," he said. I rested my hand on his shoulder and squeezed it comfortingly.
"What would you spend your time on if you didn't feel guilt about things?" I teased gently and he passed me an unamused look. "Kate wouldn't have offered to make a TARDIS landing pad at the Tower if she were upset."
"I couldn't leave the security protocol there. Not if there was a risk of someone who isn't a Lethbridge-Stewart in charge," he said, and I smiled as I moved my hand to comb my fingers through his hair. I'd learned that it calmed him down better than anything else.
"I don't blame you and I'm sure Kate doesn't either," I said firmly before I released him and started landing the TARDIS. "Darn I didn't get the chance to ask you all my questions."
"Emma you'll be asking me questions until the universe dies. I'm sure you'll find the time," he said after he laughed in response to my muttering. I flashed a teasing smile at him as we headed towards the door.
"I have no doubts about that, but these questions have to do with the present, so I wanted to find the time now," I said, and he laughed again.
"Good afternoon Doctor, Emma," Kate said as soon as we stepped out. To my surprise the Doctor saluted at her with a smile on his face and I awkwardly shoved my hand out towards her, since I didn't want to hug her considering she was at work. She nodded at the Doctor before stepping up to me, ignoring my hand and giving me a quick hug.
"So, what's going on? All he would tell me was that it was something odd but considering that's our whole lives it didn't really clear anything up for me," I said and jerked my thumb at him teasingly. Kate's eyes sparked with mirth for a moment before her professional face returned and she gestured towards the building and we fell into step beside her.
"We've been getting reports of volcanic activity," Kate said.
"That doesn't seem odd. There are volcanos all over the Earth and UNIT works globally," I said.
"Normally it wouldn't be cause for concern except the reports are coming from England," Kate said.
"Oh. Well in light of that I don't know if odd was the descriptor I would have picked," I said with a pointed look at the Doctor and he laughed.
"What would you have suggested?"
"I don't know, maybe unnatural?" I suggested since volcanic activity in England was just that before I hesitated. "Or at least as far as I know there aren't any volcanoes in England."
"Technically there are they just went extinct several million years ago," the Doctor said, and I looked at him in confusion.
"We probably don't have time for this so remind me to ask you how a volcano goes extinct later," I said and looked at Kate. "I'm going to guess that the volcanic activity isn't anywhere close to an extinct volcano."
"You're correct," she said as she opened a door to a small laboratory, and I gasped in shock at Mark standing in the middle of the room by a table holding a giant sheet of paper.
"Mark! Oh my God since when do you work for UNIT!?" I cried as I darted up to him and threw my arms around him. He hugged me back quickly.
"Me!? What about you!?" He said before turning towards another door. "Sarah! Emma's here."
"Both of you work for UNIT?" I asked before I squealed in delight as Sarah stepped through the door. "Holy shit Sarah! You're pregnant! And huge!"
"Emma you were at the shower months ago," Sarah said with a confused look on her face and I winced.
"I haven't done that yet." I waved over my shoulder towards the Doctor. "Side effect of time travel."
"That explains a lot actually," Sarah said as she blinked at the Doctor, who cleared his throat pointedly and I winced again.
"Sorry. Mark, Sarah this is the Doctor. Doctor this is Sarah and Mark Bingsleigh. I went to University with them," I said and waved my hand between them. Sarah smiled while Mark held his hand out to the Doctor, who returned his handshake with enthusiasm.
"Pleasure to meet you. Your reputation precedes you," Mark said, and the Doctor pulled a slightly disgruntled face.
"I don't know if I want to know what my reputation is," he said, and I laughed.
"You couldn't have been that bad when you worked here." He tugged awkwardly at his tie in response.
"You'd be surprised Emma. Now what are we dealing with?" the Doctor asked Mark who spread the paper he'd been holding back out on the table. The Doctor pulled his brainy specs out of his pocket and slid them on.
"Well as near as we can tell, the whole thing started with a meteor that landed in a field here." He tapped on one of the circles on the map. "Only thing that was odd was the size of it, but then again it's not unprecedented."
"Or that was the case until they took a reading of it. The radiation was abnormal for lherzolite," Sarah said and must have noticed my confused blinking. "It's the rock the meteor is made of."
"Igneous rocks aren't often found floating around in space," the Doctor added, and I sent him a confused look. "Volcanic rock."
"Don't you need a volcano to make a volcanic rock?" I asked even though I was pretty sure it was a stupid question.
"You do, which was admittedly another thing that caught attention," Mark said and moved his finger over to a nearby circle on the map. "Hence why it was taken to a UNIT facility not far from the initial landing point."
"Some more in-depth tests were done, most came back inconclusive. But then everyone's attention was dragged away from the meteor by the discovery of hardened lava at the original crash sight," Kate said, and the Doctor looked up at her at that with a frown on his face.
"What did they miss it when the meteor was first discovered?" He asked and Kate shook her head and handed him two pictures. I arched up on my toes so that I could peer at them over his shoulder. The first picture showed the meteor sitting in a field and the second showed the same field but blackened with lava. The timestamps on the pictures said that they had been taken weeks apart.
"The lava came after?" I clarified. The Doctor hummed a yes and pressed a kiss to my forehead without looking away from the photos.
"Caused a bit of a stir, all hands-on deck type of thing, so all the research projects were shipped from that lab to a storage facility over here." Mark's finger slid over to a different circle.
"And then about two and a half weeks later the lab was buried under lava and a fine dusting of volcanic ash," Sarah said.
"The pattern has continued, though the volcanic activity seems to be happening quicker every time. Can't make heads or tails of it, my first thought was that the meteor was causing it but I had it under observation the previous time there was volcanic activity reported," Mark said as he leaned back from the table and pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes, like he always did in university when he was over tired, but too stubborn to sleep. I gave Sarah a look, which she returned knowingly, as I raised my hand slightly when an idea occurred to me.
"Emma if you ever raise your hand again, I might get upset," the Doctor threatened idly, though there was no heat behind it.
"Sorry just, what if what's causing the volcanic activity is something that's following the meteor? Maybe it's valuable to some alien culture whose spaceships are very small active volcanos?" I asked and I got several blank stares before I saw an idea start to glow in the Doctor's eyes.
"Pyrovile! Emma Bradley you are brilliant!" He shouted and I jumped as he spun and pressed his lips to my forehead.
"What?" I asked and he hurriedly told us about Donna and Pompeii. "Okay except there's one small problem. Sarah said that the meteor was made out of something else."
"Lherzolite," she supplied, and I nodded.
"Lherzovile is Pyrovile's sister planet," the Doctor said.
"Is that kind of like a sister ship?" I asked.
"Think like Earth and Venus. Or perhaps Earth and Mondas in this case," he said and paused for a moment to think about it. "Similar in size and both able to sustain life."
"Okay that makes sense. But isn't Pyrovile kind of far from here?" I asked and Mark crossed his arms like he was thinking.
"Stranger things have happened Emma," the Doctor said.
"But why? What could be so important that a Lherzovillian would come all this way to get it?" Sarah asked as she rubbed her hand over her stomach.
"Maybe there's something inside it," I said with a shrug. "Did anyone X-ray it?"
Mark scrambled over towards a stack of papers at my question while Sarah moved at a more sedate pace to a filing cabinet. The Doctor's hands tightened around my shoulders and I turned to look at him.
"You are utterly brilliant Emma," he said and gave me another brilliance kiss.
"Hey, don't get too quick with those, it might turn out that my idea isn't going to pan out," I said teasingly, and he frowned at me, like he was trying to decide if I was being too self deprecating.
"Rest assured Emma your idea panned out," Mark said as he finished leafing through a giant stack of papers with a crease between his eyebrows. "How could they not have X-rayed it?"
"Well it isn't exactly standard procedure," Sarah said, and Mark threw her a look over his shoulder.
"What about our lives is standard procedure?" Mark asked. Sarah shrugged.
"I have a follow up question," I said after I had glanced at the map again. The Doctor made a go on noise, because he was still holding my shoulders for unknown reasons. "Where is the meteor now?"
"Oh God," Sarah said after several moments of silence and slid weakly into a nearby chair. I flicked my gaze between her, Mark and Kate.
"It's about three floors below us," Mark said with a decent amount of fake cheer in his voice. Kate pulled her phone out of her pocket and started talking a mile a minute as she stepped away from us.
"I thought that I was supposed to be the dumb one," I said under my breath and the Doctor frowned at me while giving me a slight shake.
"Emma," he said reprovingly, and I smiled.
"What? I am blonde."
"You aren't funny."