The TARDIS was where they had left it, tucked behind a fence in a small alleyway, looking as terribly out of place as it always did. "Good. It's still there." Cat breathed, taking a brief moment to catch her breath now that they were within sight of it, and therefore safe by association.

He looked at her, as though the possibility that it might not have been there had only just occurred to him. "Was that an option?" He didn't want to think about the last time his TARDIS had been taken from him, not now-

She shrugged, not exactly the most knowledgeable about what as possible and what wasn't where time machines were concerned. "The way our day is going?"

Andy stood there a moment, his hand resting on Margaret's shoulder, though the sight of the mostly-empty alleyway had grip tightening protectively. "Wait a minute, what are we doing here?" There wasn't anything of note, so unless they were all about to pile into a dumpster, he had that sinking feeling that they'd just been played. And to think he'd almost trusted that stranger, had seen something in the fast talking that showed that he knew what was going on at least, which was more than could have been said for anyone else-

The Doctor didn't bother looking at him, going straight for the doors instead. "If you hadn't noticed, I have a great deal more to worry about than explaining things to you."

Andy looked surprised, though whether it was from the dismissive response or from the blue box that he could have sworn he hadn't seen until just then. It was as if his eyes had just slid off, the way water did off a duck's back, but then once he knew it was there, it had always been there- it was just another of those things that he couldn't explain, that buried there at the edge of his consciousness, that itched, that meant he had to reconsider too much- it was like having a constant, low-level headache he'd caught right along with the first case, that had only continued building there in the back of his mind.

Cat had turned to make sure they were following, caught the look on his face. It was written there, in huge, bold letters exactly what he was thinking, and she knew what it felt like, knew it a little too well. But then, it hadn't been quite this gradual for her, so it wasn't like she'd had the ability to pretend that it all made sense.

He didn't seem to notice her until she touched his shoulder. He looked down, about to brush her off, not wanting to talk to someone who had so very clearly accepted everything that that Doctor-person had said, but something in her eyes stopped him, something in the sideways twist of her mouth that said, clearly enough, that she knew. Knew what it was like to have that logical foundation (however shaky it might in reality be) yanked from under her feet. He opened his mouth to speak, to ask some sort of question that wouldn't actually do anything to help clear it all up, but she just shook her head, jerked it towards the box.

So he followed her, because it made the most sense of anything that had happened that day, as sad as that seemed to him at the moment. And because Margaret had gone in, and he couldn't leave her, not alone, not when she was so buried in the unbelievable.

Margaret had already followed, not seeming to need any sort of reassurance, not having any sort of crisis other than the one she was already having – without her son, she didn't care what else was thrown at her, as it couldn't be any worse. She had no room for more cerebral crises when her foundation was already gone, when she was already floating.

It was to the point where she didn't react when she stepped into the impossible box, didn't seem to really process the massive inside and the elaborate, inexplicable machinery. "Mister Smith- Doctor, I don't know- Just-"

He turned, eyes locking to hers, something in them steady, but almost harsh in the undilution. He'd never been one to sugar-coat or soften to protect the feelings, however much he might empathize, and it showed. "Doctor."

She didn't question the name, didn't care as long as he brought her child back. "You said you think you know who did this."

"I just need to confirm."

"Is my son still alive?" Her eyes were huge in her face, that wild, abandoning sorrow so close to the surface.

He looked at her, that dark gaze too intense by half, something hidden under that control, something just as wild and abandoning. "I can promise you I'll find him."

She nodded, accepting what he didn't say as much as what he did.

/

"This is-" They were interrupted by Andy's sudden shout; that snap from the disbelieving. He was standing there in the doorway, incredulity written in every line of his face. It was exactly the right sort of impossible thing, incontrovertible but containing only possibility. "I just can't- how did you- its- its-"

"It's bigger on the inside. There you go. Now we can get back to work." It was a little rude, that was true, but he didn't exactly have time to coddle anyone right now, gushing over the impossibility that was his daily reality. Part of it was also the shoving of that tiny, wild, abandoning thing that had shown in his eyes away, locking it back down where it had come from, hidden away.

"What are you doing?" Cat dodged her way up to the main console, where the Doctor was obviously in the middle of setting something up.

"Triangulating the source code." He looked up at her through glasses that were rapidly sliding down his nose, his hair working its way towards thoroughly askew as he ran hands absently through it. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"You look rather like Mr. Lovato. Taught science my fourth year." She tilted her head, picturing his hair whiter, and with more of a pouf. She hadn't made the association before, hadn't exactly spent much time pondering fourth-year science lately, but something about his current expression…

Something soft and bright crossed his face briefly, nothing more than a memory, but at the same time, there was something else there, something quick in his eyes, something more painful there, right under the surface. "I taught science once. Well, physics. Physics. Phys-ics. Phys-ics. Phys-"

"What are you?" They'd rather forgotten about Andy, standing there in the middle of the room, staring up at that impossible ceiling.

"The Doctor." Whatever had been there, both that warmth and that sudden, sharp splinter of something, were gone, broken by the reminder of where he was now, though there was a residual harshness to the reply. "I travel in space and time, in my TARDIS. It is also bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, in case anyone's forgotten."

"You are rude today." Cat commented, raising an eyebrow. She was curious, so very curious, about what had been lurking there. She'd been wondering about the fates of his previous Companions earlier, and something about what had been on his face there, had her wondering if maybe that was her answer/

"Rude and not ginger." He ran another hand through the hair that was almost, though not quite standing straight up. It was bothering him, it had been bothering him, the why the TARDIS, generally so reliable, had dumped them a month and a half early, but then, it had probably just been the result of a crossed signal, of something as simple as that- after all, anyone with sufficient technology to toss about field-disrupters was someone that would be throwing out plenty of signals, and none of them that belonged. So the answer was only more questions, the who and the why, and it was all getting far more serious than he had expected when planning to drop by for a visit. Even if it was this chaos he thrived off of, he didn't like that it was children, that it was the innocent, and it was all enough to make someone a little bit rude, not to mention that quick, oh so quick reminder of what he had lost-

Lost in his own thoughts, he flapped a hand at Cat. "You might want to step back there; you'll only get in the way."

Normally she might have complained about his dismissal of her abilities, but it was obvious enough in the way he'd looked at her there, that she wasn't the one that he was annoyed with, and so she decided to let it go, quietly stepping back to the edge of the platform, out of the way.

She turned, looked over her shoulder at their (what should she call them? Momentary companions? Fellow investigators? Visitors? Nothing seemed to fit quite right, encapsulate the mix of wonder and terror that was their life) standing there. It was amazing how seeing them there, in the TARDIS for the first time, struck home for her how used to this all she'd already gotten, how far she was from the Cat that had stepped so gingerly between the doors that first time. Would she ever really fit back down where she'd been? Be the Catherine Davies as she'd known herself to be? Would she ever want to?

"What, exactly, is he doing?" Andy's investigative instincts were back in his voice, now that he'd had a moment to recover. It had all snapped into place, really, standing there, looking up at what shouldn't be, what couldn't be. Too much had been wearing thing, official explanations passed down without a thought as to how well they'd age, too much with this case in particular, gnawing at the back of his mind. But what more could he think impossible, once having seen this? He paused for a second, looking at her, really looking at her for perhaps the first time that day (that terribly eventful day). "And if he's the Doctor, who are you?"

"Triangulating the source code, whatever that's supposed to mean. All I know is he's trying to confirm whoever he thinks planted the field-disrupter. And I'm Cat Davies. Sidekick extraordinaire." She leaned against the railing, watching the Doctor bustle about, doing what he did, nibbling thoughtlessly at her lower lip.

"I'm amplifying the signal and using it to locate the transmitter." They'd forgotten that, being only a few feet away, he was perfectly capable of listening to their conversation. Dusting off his hands, as though finally done, he stood in front of the recess he'd slipped the metallic object into, gave a final adjustment to his screens, and flicked the switch.

Nothing seemed to happen for a moment, as the binary scrolling across the displays continued as they always had. But a breath later, as soon as it had occurred to them that something had gone wrong, that there was nothing to find, the TARDIS surprised them all by listing suddenly sideways, the center columns moving to that familiar, peculiar rhythm.

"No! No! No!" There was something like actual alarm in the Doctor's voice, in the way he was frantically flicking at switches and dials, obviously trying to counteract whatever had just happened.

"Where are we going?" Cat clung to the rail like her life depended on it, decidedly unnerved by both the sudden takeoff, as with his reaction to it. Everything was alright, everything could be perfectly fine, as long as he seemed to know what was going on. But if he didn't…

"I don't know," was the less-than-reassuring reply, made even less so by the way he was whacking away at the dashboard.

"What in the bloody hell is going on?" Andy half-stepped, half-fell down the stairs, reaching for the similarly-alarmed looking Margaret.

"They were quite a bit cleverer than I thought they would be. This would be them tracing back the trace we'd sent out, and using it to pinpoint our location." He gritted his teeth against another disconcerting tilt. "And then overriding the parking brake, to bring us to them. Which they should not be able to do, oh no."

"That is not good at all." Cat offered from the floor, having decided that she was safer the less distance there was left to fall.

"Not in the least."