A few minutes later, and the nationwide emergency could safely considered to be over and the Doctor's little party was making their way down the staircase slowly. On almost every step there were the remains of the false people, now no more but pieces of glass painted silver. Sarah placed her feet very carefully, knowing that even though their former enemies were no longer lethal, falling into a pile of shards still warranted a trip back to the hospital. Amused by her athletic exercises in trying to avoid the more dangerous areas of the staircase, the Doctor smiled at her for a time before he finally offered a hand Sarah could steady herself on.

"Just one more question, Doctor…!", she began, once she had regained some balance and could finally stop flailing her arms.

"Out with it, then.", he said, while guiding her downwards on a safe path.

"Just how did the TARDIS end up in the mirror world?"

The Doctor looked almost a little disappointed that she had to ask at all. "The same way everyone did. The tetrahedron doesn't care whether the matter absorbed is organic or not. Just think about it; What else should the Master, or our mysterious stranger, have done with the TARDIS, hm?"

Together, they reached the bottom of the stairs, and, as Sarah raised her gaze off the floor for a moment, the TARDIS was sitting not too far in front of her, rising out of the broken mirrors like a monument. "They couldn't move her again because you had the key all this time... and even if not, she was still damaged, wasn't she? And if they would have left her… I don't know; wherever she had landed...", she began to think out loud, but the Doctor continued for her before she had figured out the rest of her sentence.

"… one of you would have found her, eventually. They couldn't allow for that to happen." He was smiling at her again, and even though no one said it, they were aware that, if the TARDIS had been found sooner, he would not have stayed human for as long as he did.

"So they hid her away in a pocket universe.", concluded Sarah.

The Doctor lifted a finger to signal her she was right. "Exactly." There, she had figured it out, almost by herself.

As they neared the TARDIS, the Brigadier approached them from the other end of the hall. "Doctor!", he called out even before he had reached them. "Was it really necessary for you to put the warehouse in shambles? We were almost hit by the flying shards!" Annoyed by the disarray he was walking through, he kicked some of the mirror fragments out of his way – which he could do safely thanks to his heavy soldier boots.

"Ha! Listen to the man who wanted to call in the RAF earlier!", laughed the Doctor in response, before he unexpectedly turned back over his shoulder to Harry with a look that sought for understanding. "Humans, always complaining…!", he said, with a sigh that was just meant to mock them.

As soon as the Time Lord was facing the Brigadier again, Harry leaned in Sarah's direction. "Time Lords, always complaining about humans…!", he added quietly, but melodically, to turn the joke back on their alien friend, which caused Sarah to giggle.

Her alien friend shot her another glance, wondering what had caused her sudden jolly mood, but she just shrugged innocently and cocked her head to transmit an unspoken 'What are you looking at? We didn't say a word!' while biting her lower lip to keep the rest of the giggles in check.

Though the Doctor appeared to have missed out on half of the joke, the Brigadier had watched them long enough to understand what had happened inside of the TARDIS. "I see, you've recovered your memory…", he concluded and nodded approvingly, "Congratulations, Doctor."

In response, the Doctor gave him best, proudest, grin; Happier than ever to be who he was.

In the meantime, Benton, too, had caught up with them, and was now properly greeted back by his superior.
"Mister Benton! It's good to see you back!", said the Brigadier with a proper smile for once.

"Back and ready for duty, Sir!", saluted Benton, who still seemed very chipper for someone who had spent the past weeks in another world. Sarah noticed how his gaze drifted past the UNIT superior and stopped at the sight of someone standing at the other end of the warehouse. He was waving over to them before she had figured out who he was waving to. "Oh, hello, Miss Shaw!", Benton called out.

And there she was. Not that Sarah knew her much, or much about her. But from the pictures she had seen she recognized the ginger-haired woman wearing a lab coat as a former UNIT member. Liz Shaw smiled at the soldier, and lifted a hand to wave back at him politely.

It was just then that the Doctor had spotted her as well. As he called her name, Sarah was rather suddenly reminded that the woman had once been his assistant, quite a while before she had become affiliated with UNIT herself. "Hello, Liz! Are you doing all right?", the Doctor shouted over to her and waved at her, too, but in a grander fashion than Benton had done it.

Again, Miss Shaw was waving back, though a bit hesitantly all of a sudden, as though she was not quite sure why she was responding to the gesture.

For some reason, her confusion only added to the Doctor's joy of seeing her again. "That's right! It's me, the Doctor!", he added for an explanation, and waved twice more, still grinning happily. His former assistant must have known him only with the face he had prior to the current one, Sarah realized.

"What do you plan to do next, Doctor?", the Brigadier cut into the conversation they were about to have half across the warehouse.

Once he had averted his eyes from the sight of his former companion, the Doctor turned rather suddenly towards the time machine in front of which they had gathered. "Well, I can't leave her sitting in this mess, now, can I?", he explained briefly, and was just on his way to unlock the doors. Was he already about to leave Earth behind again?

For a few seconds, Sarah looked back at Liz standing several yards away from them and wondered to herself why the Doctor would choose to miss out on this chance to catch up with one of his former assistants. Of course, he could always come back for a chat if he wanted to, but had he ever done it…? Sarah did not really allow herself the time to ponder about it in depth. Once inside the TARDIS, it would not be long until he was off, and she would not allow him to leave Earth without her, so, she too, turned to the space craft to keep the door open until she had said her good-byes.

"There's no stopping him and his travels, is there?", asked the Brigadier with an eyebrow raised and his arms crossed in front of his body as he watched them run away from the damages and duties they were about to leave behind.

Sarah smiled back at him. "Not even when he's stuck on Earth.", she said, thinking back at how the Doctor's zest for adventure had shone through his false identity and driven him towards his true self eventually. The young woman still stood in the open TARDIS door to look back at the medical officer.

"Are you coming, Harry?"

If their latest adventure had proven anything, then that they were still a great team. The least she could do was ask, because Harry deserved to be invited again. Daleks, Sontarans and Cybermen aside, they used to have so much fun. Besides, Harry was staring at her with the eyes of a dog someone had just tied to the front of a grocery store. She knew, he wanted a proper good-bye, but she was not ready to give one. And she was not going to stay, either.

"Uhm, well…", he stuttered hesitantly and looked at the TARDIS with some distrust.

She could not force him to come along if he did not want to, but since he was not giving her a straight 'No', she had the impression he was toying with the idea. Maybe he wasn't as reluctant as he wanted to be. Mind you, joyriding in space was not a reasonable thing to do for such a reasonable fellow as him, but it had to be tempting.

Harry glanced to his superior, seemingly asking for approval, but the Brigadier just rolled his eyes and shrugged in defeat. If the Doctor deemed any of his staff capable of saving the universe, he should have all the help UNIT could offer.

"Well, but just for a moment!", Harry decided eventually, though sighing, since he had lost the argument with himself. "I don't want to be blamed for stranding us on Nerva again…!"

Oh, there was a possibility that he was not coming back to Earth for a time, and he would not step on board had he not accepted it. Sarah guided Harry past herself into the TARDIS and quickly waved good-bye to Lethbridge-Stewart and Warrant Officer Benton before she retreated into the police box as well.

"Bye, everyone!"

...

After almost a minute of silence, while the two UNIT members waited for the TARDIS to vanish before their eyes, the Brigadier stated calmly: "I wonder where they will end up this time..."

"In a lot of trouble, I reckon. Never seen 'em anywhere else so far.", Benton replied with a shrug.

"That is true, Mister Benton. Indeed, very true."