The audience was still applauding, when the music started. The Doctor looked around, confused, but Quinn grasped his hand again. "Sssh," she said. "Just listen. This is going to be good."
The music was a stirring movement of strings, light and lilting, seeming to be a song to celebrate the freedom the Doctor had given them. Maybe it had come from the same place the Vortisaurs had, giving Robert a little glimpse of the things to come, she thought.
Drums came in, slowly at first but gaining in momentum as the piece picked up rhythm. Families on the stage were reuniting and hugging, and several people wanted to shake the Doctor's hand. He tried to keep to himself, to shrink into the crowd, but she wouldn't let him. She pulled him along, through the crowd, letting people hug him and thank him personally for what he'd done. She knew he never got recognition like this, and she wasn't going to let him slink away and hide again without getting his fair share of the adulation for once.
The Doctor played the part of the reluctant hero well, smiling and waving here and there but still keeping close to her as she dragged him along. She was starting to realize the issue - the man, the alien Time Lord who stared down death regularly... he was shy. Painfully so. The fact that even he was afraid of something made her smile.
And then the lyrics started. Quinn was struck by the beauty of them. She had no idea what they were saying but they were a sort of chant, a vaguely lyrical sort of tribal sounding chant. It was beautiful, it caught the mood of the room perfectly, and she felt perfectly at peace hearing it, like it was somehow familiar even though she'd never heard anything quite like it.
Just as she was starting to enjoy it, however, the Doctor stopped, dead in his tracks, his grip tightened around her hand. She looked back at him, confusion etched onto her own features. He had that look again, that same panicked, terror stricken look he'd had before. He was listening intently, and breathing deeply. As she stared into his eyes, everything else seemed to fade away - the auditorium, the audience, the happy chatter of reunited families all around them, everything. Clegg came onto the stage and patted the Doctor heartily on the shoulder, laughing and saying something. Quinn didn't hear it. The Doctor staggered a little under the heavy impact of Clegg's broad hand, but even then he didn't break his concentration, looking straight ahead in fear.
Then suddenly he was off, in a flash. Now he was the one dragging her by the hand, shoving his way back through the crowd to the TARDIS, producing his key and unlocking it, he threw the doors open and bounded up inside. Quinn hesitated for just a moment, looking out at the audience and the cast and crew, still engaged in their reuniting, wondering what could possibly have happened now. "Whatever happened to happy endings?" she asked as she ducked inside and shut the door.
A/N: The Doctor and Quinn will return in Collapse Depth.