Lizzie walks ahead of him into the Tardis. Lucky thing he left the door unlocked, because she breezes happily past, quite as though she does this every day in life. She's adjusting, and it charms his heart to think she that when she first saw it, she compared it to a ship, which flew like a bird, and was too enamoured of this even to notice that it was larger within.

Transdimensional engineering, she'd say today, and probably think nothing of it.

He is a little less charmed when she takes herself direct to the navigational panel and starts programming their destination without so much as a by-your-leave. He's rather afraid he might be looking rather sour by the time she notices. He might, in fact, be leaning on the console's edge, arms folded, eyes roving the high vaults of the ceiling as if he might just take off and leave her to it, if she feels that way. "Well," she tells him, "you don't know where we're going."

"No. And I ran about taking companions on magical mystery tours without a word of explanation I wouldn't last very long. Martha alone would have done me in five times over…"

"Oh, look, if I've hurt your feelings-"

"No, no. I have no Hurt Feelings Department. I'm an emotional rhinoceros, Elizabeth."

"Now, that can't possibly be true." First he takes the insult quietly. Then recognizes it as a compliment and at least softens the stiffness in his shoulders. Then, slowly, he realizes it's neither of these things and whips round, flapping his hands at phantom words without ever actually managing to catch and use them. There's a flash of danger through Lizzie, and she looks up smiling, "C'mon, Doctor. Won't it be nice not having to do the job of six pilots? I can do this; cut it down to three."

The Doctor moves, though without taking his eyes off her, to the other side of the console. This proves rather difficult with the time rotor between them. He leans until her image in the glass becomes to distorted, then darts his head to the other side. Her hands move confidently over the controls. More to the point, her face glows; she's enjoying this. Then she takes the handbrake off.

"Now where would you have learned that?"

She lifts her eyes to him. Still able to operate the temporal stabilizers for a safe and steady (non-spinning) flight down the vortex despite her confusion. "Well, where would I have learned anything? You seem to know more about it than me."

"In all of history there aren't an awful lot of people left who can fly a Tardis. Even fewer could fly my Tardis who, while she is undoubtedly the very best Tardis ever grown, can be a bit temperamental and has a couple of parts I can't get that need replacing."

"I know it the same way I know the rest," she shrugs. Ducks behind the rotor and mutters, "Someday you'll explain it to me."

"Do me a favour," he mutters back, swinging around on the monitor to meet her close, "Be six pilots while I go and disguise myself."

Clara reads aloud to Adam from a perfectly preserved 2012 edition of A Tale Of Two Cities, with a colour variation on the cover and a misprint on pages 42 and 234, not knowing that it's worth a small fortune in the year she's sitting in. "A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other-" Her head snaps up with the door opens. She was three chapters in and absorbed, and anyway, who could be coming to see them so soon?

But it's only Jessica. Edging round the door as quietly as she can in her heavy boots. Clara feels the beginnings of the old blush creeping up in her cheeks, but Jessica seems to have forgotten the joke. "Much sorry, Claraperson," she whispers. "Not to be interrupts her."

"I'm not sure it's making any difference anyway." She starts to close the book. Jessica rushes suddenly across the room and stretches out, her flat palm holding it open.

"No! Does!" This was too fast, too loud and earnest. She clears her throat and draws away, disappearing in behind her hair. Hurrying, she grabs the Doctor's wheelchair across and parks down by Clara's side. "Much sorry. Only meaning that, him am having been deep inside cold ground places all alone for much many years. Is being much nice for him to hear that her am paying attention. Not alone."

Something is just a little bit off. Clara holds the page, certainly. What Jessica just said makes sense, after all. But it's something about the way she said it. Clara can't quite put her finger on it. She has turned back, and turned her eyes down to the book, before it strikes her. "Aha!" and she points an excited, shaking finger.

Jessica stiffens, freezes. Rolls the wheelchair back to where she can get up and run from the room in a straight line.

"Sorry, maybe that was a bit dramatic, but… But you said 'alone'."

Jessica shrugs, "Him was being."

"But you said alone."

"What else would be saying?"

"You say 'alonely'. That's the first time I've heard you get it right."

"Oh. Well. Learns it." Jessica wheels herself back over. "Not to be scares her like that, Claraperson. Reads now."

"Yeah, okay." Clara lifts the book up again, propping it on the edge of the bed. And she doesn't feel anything at all when Jessica reaches out and weaves her fingers with Adam's, because she puts her head on Clara's shoulder too. "A solemn consideration," she continues, "when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!"

"Doctor!" Lizzie shouts. "Landing is much more difficult in practice than in theory!"

"Coming, coming!"

Following the sound of his face she cranes to see him. A natural reaction, if pointless; it won't make him come any faster. The Doctor, too, is trying to quiet an enormous pair of military surplus boots. He is also not used to dragging a weighty, flicking tail full of animatronics and having to carry twenty-something kilos of armour, all whilst sweating under a layer of deep purple greasepaint. Lizzie has the Tardis most of the way into a safe landing by the time he gets there to finish it.

"You're not serious."

"No, Sirius is a star. I am Kalakth'ktar, a member of the Lembrustra warrior classes, as you can clearly see by the scarification amongst the scales of my crown and temples." Yes, his skullcap really is a very interesting piece of prosthesis. Try as she might, whatever her rapidly-expanding intelligence, Lizzie cannot fathom how it manages to contain his hair. He stands back, arms open to give her the full effect, twirls round with an open mouthed grin and his tail twitching. "What do you think?"

"I think if you'd stop smiling, speaking English and looking like you're having such a very good time, it might work a lot better."

One finger on his nose, one pointing at her, "Right. Now, where are we parked?"

"Well, given that your transportation is as recognizable as you, she would appear to have found herself an empty supply closet that just fits her."

The Doctor tries to pull up his sleeves. Finding only armour he lets it rattle back into place and rushes to the monitor. "Now, old girl, if I can get all dolled up to go out, the least you can do is put a bit of slap on. Outside! Now. And dress yourself."

"Your cloaking device?" Lizzie says. "You haven't thought that one through, have you?"

"What, you mean that stepping out of an invisible box is just as suspicious as arriving in a Tardis?"

"Quite."

"That's why I'm not using the cloaking device." There is the brief judder of repositioning. "Come outside and I'll show you!" He gets her by the back of the neck, moving her ahead of him to the door with a soft impression of a motor engine. Right at the threshold, Lizzie digs in her heels to stop. She turns, winds back her hand, and slaps him, hard.

Now the look on his face is more appropriate to a Lembrustra warrior.

There's also purple make-up on her hand, and she wipes it disdainfully on a coat that hangs on the handstand. "Oi!" he cries. Very much more like a Lembrustra warrior.

Job done, Lizzie steps out ahead of him. Turns with real interest to see what the Tardis has disguised herself as. "Oh yes," she sighs, at the bright red British Telecom phone box, "very discreet."

Clara has been reading on for some time now. She'd almost started to think Jessica had fallen asleep.

Between chapters, she looks up, giving her eyes a break from the page. Jessica's fine, pale fingers aren't just wound in Adam's anymore, but delicately stroking the knuckles.

Not jealous, and not thinking at all of Jessica as some sort of rival, Clara turns her chair just a little. And now that she looks, there's a slightly damp patch on the sleeve of her cardigan. When she brushes at it, Jessica sits abruptly straight. She lets go of Adam's hand and turns her face away. She tries to hide but Clara sees the gleam on her cheeks. "Are you alright?"

She opens her mouth to answer, but it's just a wet choke. Jessica just nods.

"Jessica, you're crying."

"Story. Story am being much sad."

"Well, I'll stop then."

"No! Him am having wanted for reading it and her am to keep readings it for him." Jessica climbs out of the wheelchair and crosses the room to the box of sterile tissues to dry her face. She stops a single sob with the side of her hand, breathes deep to steady herself.

But Clara's not quite ready to let it go, or to let Jessica go. The girl looks like she needs a hug, and Clara's very good at those. "C'mere," she murmurs. Jessica flinches, but it's not long before she gives up. "Did something happen when you were out? Where did the Doctor send you?"

"Not anything happens, Claraperson."

"Where did you go?"

"Not anywhere, not finds, not does right. Claraperson please keeps reading for Henry; him am needing friend and not having any. Not having best friend because is having left him."

"Adam."

"…What says, Claraperson?"

"In fact, before you left, you were saying 'SleepyAdam'. And you just said Henry. And 'left' is past tense, isn't it?"

"Henry like in story, Claraperson."

"There's no Henry, I'm the one reading."

"Later. Reads it before."

"Doubtful. I've never heard you use the past tense properly before, Jessica."

Now Jessica straightens herself. She grabs back all this unruly hair, wondering how she can ever stand it, shoving it over her shoulders. She drags the last tears from her face, clears the thickness from her throat. Looking Clara dead in the eye, "Aren't you tired?"

Clara finds herself sinking back onto her seat, nodding softly. "Little bit."

"No, the wheelchair. It's got arms, you'll be more comfortable."

"You're sure you don't mind?"

"Oh, be my guest, Miss Oswald."

"Thanks, Jessica." Clara settles herself, eyes closed, slipping happily towards the dark of sleep. "This'll be nice. Just rest my eyes."

"Yeah." Jessica gets the office chair. Lifts it up a bit and puts it behind the wheelchair. Her hands come to rest on top of Clara's head, stroking over and over down through her hair. Very relaxing. She'll like that. "Maybe, while you snooze, you could forget all these little mistakes I've been making. If you were feeling like a really nice person, which I know you are, you could tell me how to correct them. Talk me through my Jessica impression. I won't forget it, Miss Oswald."

Mumbling up out of her dreams, "…I told you, didn't I, about the past tense thing?"