A/N: So that thing that I do where I write a one-shot and then keep going, thus invalidating the story's status as a one-shot? Did it again.

She pulls him into the box and for a dizzy moment he thinks she's going to kiss him, going to push him up against the door once closed and snog the life out of him. Again. Maybe he'll actually pay attention this time. But she doesn't. She only turns sideways into him, shoulder under one side of his coat, and gives him a slightly predatory grin. And he is disappointed, he is so so disappointed, that he adjusts the lapels of his coat with slightly more force than absolutely necessary, snapping them as though they're wire-threaded. She isn't paying him the slightest bit of attention, she's advancing towards the console.

"So," she calls over her shoulder, "coffee and chips?"

"What," he says, "I thought we were tracing a signal into outer space."

"Hmm?"

"Zombie dinosaurs," he reminds her, disbelieving. "Went boom beneath the earth."

"Oh, yeah, right. That. Well. Time machine. I did tell you that, didn't I?"

He grits his teeth slightly. "You might have mentioned it, yeah."

"So why don't we go for our date first, and then sort it out in the afterglow, yeah?"

His gaze rises from the floor up towards her, very, very slowly. She isn't even looking at him. She's looking at the screens, the monitors, and she doesn't seem to catch what he is thinking, even though he is certain that he is thinking it very, very loudly.

He says, feeling as though something is choking him— perhaps his innate British sensibilities? He did try hard to conquer those when he was younger, but they seem to have caught up with him— "I never—"

"Hmm?" She isn't even paying him any attention. "Never what? Never had coffee and chips at the same time before?" She gives a little laugh, and shakes her head. "Ridiculous."

"—on the first date," he says, painfully aware that there is quite a large gap between the beginning of his sentence and the end of it, and hoping that she will fill it in without any further assistance from him. She makes him feel all pins and needles, and while it is not altogether a pleasant experience, it is not altogether an unpleasant one either, to the point where, though he had originally planned that sentence to read something like, I never go all the way on the first date, if she wanted to understand it as, I never don't have sex on the first date, then that was okay with him, too. Within reason. She looks as though she has a lot of ideas about things, and while he's generally in favor of ideas, he doesn't think he's up to anything too complex. It was complicated enough, kissing her in front of people and keeping his mind in some semblance of order. He was going all to pieces with her just standing here in front of him.

But she really doesn't seem to be the slightest bit aware that he's said anything further at all, and he realizes that this is probably for the best.

"Oh, I suppose," she says, as though he's been actively trying to talk her out of their date. She makes a mock grumpy face, or what he thinks is a mock grumpy face— it's certainly grumpy, and given that she's spent ninety-nine percent of their time together either smiling or outright laughing, he's fairly sure she doesn't really mean it. She holds up the bit of hardware he noticed earlier, and points it at what looks like nothing in particular. Things light up, things go ding, the hardware buzzes enthusiastically. He is turned on for reasons he cannot begin to comprehend. He blinks, and suddenly she is in a different place, across the room and striding towards him.

"Ah!" she says, grinning from ear to ear, "you're back."

"Back?"

"Sorry. Just popped you in the warp hole for a moment while I went and had a look round your time line. Make sure all is present and correct." Is she looking at his trousers? "And it is. Well, I say 'a moment' but it's been— oh—"

"An hour?" he hazards.

"Three days," she says, "it's been three days. You may want to change your jumper. You've got a bit of drool."

"You went and— had a look round my time line?"

"Yes." Her eyes are steady on his, and that's unnerving, but at least she isn't looking at drool spots on his jumper.

"Well, that's— " He's not sure what it is.

"Rude?" she supplies for him.

And that's the trouble, of course, because he rather thinks it is rude, but it isn't as though there's an etiquette book that covers this kind of situation and can tell him for sure. So he's not sure what to say.

So he says, "Nice. That's— nice."

"Really?" She narrows her eyes. "I was sure you were going to say 'rude.'"

"Did you mean for it to be rude?"

"I never mean to be rude," she says, "well almost never, and I almost invariably am. I don't know, maybe they just breed them too sensitive on your planet. Or do you think it's me?"

"It could very well be you," he allows.

"Aha!" she says, triumphantly. "See, that's rude, that's proper rude, right there. Only a Scot can pull that off, eh? The rest of the universe are amateurs. Anyway. Everything seems to be fine, which is lucky for you, Professor, since I've already allowed you into the TARDIS." She looks thoughtful for a moment. "I really must try and remember to do that beforehand. Could be uncomfortable, couldn't it, if it turned out that the reason your face doesn't work and you were so eager to help me was because you're in league with the enemy somehow."

He draws his eyebrows down thoughtfully. She grabs dramatically onto the console.

"Don't do that," she says, "gravity in here's set at a very delicate balance."

"In league with the enemy how?" he says. "I don't even know who they are."

"Ah, but they could be banking on that," she says. "You never know with these people."

"With these people, who?"

"Don't know," she says, turning to the screen. "I just said that."

Surreptitiously he looks for spots on his jumper, only to discover that this is the spotted jumper his sister gave him last Christmas, and everything looks like drool even at the best of times.

"There we go!" she says, triumphantly.

"There we go where?"

"Right here." She pulls a lever with her left hand, and gives a thoughtful frown. "Or rather— there we go, right here." She puts the lever back. "Still working out the best way to fly her."

"You don't know how to fly your space ship?" he repeats, eyes wide.

"Do you?" she retorts, and this time she puts the lever about halfway pulled, and leaves it there. "Anyway, she's still getting used to me."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, nothing. I just changed recently, that's all."

He shakes his head a little. "What, you mean, like— your clothes?"

"Well, yeah, but not. My face. Well, whole body really. This one is fresh on."

"What?"

She drifts a hand up and down to indicate herself, and grins at him, and waggles her eyebrows. "What d'you think?"

"Why would you do that?"

This earns him a pout. "Well, if you're going to be rude about it—"

"No no no, I mean— why would you change your whole body? How can you change your whole body? How are we even having this conversation?"

"Well," she says thoughtfully, "the old one was a bit rubbish, I must admit, and it got boring— and I'd been running a lot, so I was going to have to take a long hot shower anyway, and then there was the blood, that made a bit of a mess, so I figured, hell with it, why not just trade it all in on a newer model? I used to be a red head," she confides. "I don't really miss that, no point in missing things, but I have to say, I'm a bit disappointed about the height difference." She stops talking long enough to take in the fact that he hasn't been able to come up with anything to say for several sentences now, and smiles at him cheekily. "Right, that's why I usually save that discussion for later on. Sorry. Thought you could handle it."

"Blood?" he says.

"Got shot," she says promptly. "Didn't like it, won't be going back to that restaurant."

"Restaurant?"

"Mind you, they did a great omelette. Mmph. Fancy an omelette instead of chips? Or we could go all out. Get an omelette and chips." She waves a hand airily. "This is your party."

"Party," he repeats, distantly.

"Are you just going to stand there repeating everything I say from now on? Because that's going to get a bit boring for at least one of us, and if that's the case I'll drop you back off home right now and save myself the trouble. I won't want to, mind you, because your facial hair has intrigued me." He is too busy boggling at her to react much to this. In the face of his obvious confusion, she relents. "Oh, alright, I won't drop you off after all. I'm willing to make sacrifices in order to keep myself entertained. Come on then. Space? Or chips. Pick one."

"Space," he says, though he can hardly credit the word with coming out of his own mouth. He attempts to look disbelievingly at himself, but there isn't a mirror handy. Probably just as well, he thinks.

"Good," she says, with a decisive nod. "That puts an end to that argument."

"Are we— are we having an argument?" He hasn't noticed, if they are.

"Teething troubles," she says dismissively. "Don't be bothered. I always have teething troubles when I pick up a new one. It's my general air of mystery. It puts people on edge."

He's definitely on edge, so he can't exactly argue with that, though it isn't so much her general air of mystery as the fact that her space ship, time ship, her whatever ship— Time and Realistic Directions in Space? What? Sounds like some sort of avant garde garage band, gives him trench flashbacks to being in one himself whilst in his teens— is lurching around him, and he's spinning more or less inaccurately in her direction, and she's put an arm about his arm and pinned him to the console with surprising force for someone so vertically challenged.

"Here we are then," she says— laughing, of course, she never seems to do anything else— and she squeezes his arm for a moment with her other hand, just a quick pressure of her fingers, enough to make him think that she's letting him know she can get to him, if she wants to; so no funny business. Except he's not entirely sure that's the message he's meant to be receiving. Whatever she's trying to say, he's enthralled; she can definitely get to him. He won't even mind.

Also, they're in space.

She tugs him over to the double doors and flings them open, and he flinches from the onslaught of the light. The light which, it turns out, is as natural as it gets; it's the light of the planet, reflecting the glow of the sun, and as he adjusts and as he stares, he wonders why no one has ever reported that the earth pulses like lifeblood is flowing just beneath it; it breathes. Astronauts. Not doing their jobs. Astro-nots. Useless. Astronaughts. He stares and stares and stares.

He thinks he hears a, "Wow," come dribbling out of his mouth.

The Doctor is watching him with a kind of pride in her eyes, as though she's put this whole thing together just for his benefit and is presenting him with the earth, as a particularly shiny Christmas gift. Her arms are folded and she leans against the doorway. She has an insouciant lean, but he suspects that she has practiced it.

"Pretty, isn't it?"

He makes another effort at, "Wow," and is marginally more successful. She dips her head and laughs a little.

"This is why," she says. "This is why I help. I've sort of adopted you, I suppose. I like planets. I like the people on them. Well, the people, and the things, and the things that are also people. I saw a series of photographs once. The most beautiful planets you ever saw— oh, dramatic, barren, a bit stark, but lovely. Bit like your face, if you don't mind me saying so. Made me want them. Almost yearn for them." He does manage to look at her, at that, but he can't really summon up an appropriate response. None seems to be required. She's looking out at the earth, hanging there below them. "Turned out to be photographs of the bottoms of frying pans. Oh, was I mad." She swallows. "But here's the earth. Have you ever seen anything more beautiful in your life?"

"No," he says, and he's truthful.

"Neither have I," says the Doctor, "and that's sayin' something." She pushes away from the doors, and stands up straight again. The bit of tech is in her hand, and she sweeps it apparently aimlessly back and forth in the middle distance before them.

"There they are," she says, and he can make out a spot, quite a long ways away— it appears— but he can't make out any details. Even if he squints, which he does, though he's aware that this action causes his eyebrows to look as though they are actively conquering his face, like Alexander the Great.

"Who are they?"

"Can't tell yet."

"Well, what do they want?"

"Oh, I imagine they were trying to take over the earth. Ninety-nine percent of the time, that's the case. Well, seventy-five percent, anyway."

"Via zombie dinosaurs?" he murmurs, and she nods.

"Fair point," she says. "Makes you think they don't really know what they're about, doesn't it? Strictly amateur hour. I've seen better attempts from the Paxavillians of Wentwhistle Five, and they're strict pacifists without any limbs who spend most of their lives in small dark rooms." She points the tech at them again, and it buzzes. "Right," she says, in some satisfaction, "that's them sorted for the moment."

"What? Really?"

"Sure, why not?"

"All you did was point that— thing at them."

"Sonic screwdriver," she says, waving it at him now to demonstrate, as though she's introducing the two of them. "It has numerous applications. I'd tell you how many but I'm not even sure. I keep adding more functions in my sleep. Let no one tell you that sleep-tinkering isn't dangerous. I've set my dressing gown on fire more times than I care to count."

"Ought to have someone watching you."

"Tried. I kept setting them on fire, too."

He's very suddenly made aware of the fact that they are not, as he had previously supposed, as far away from the spot she's been pointing at as he had thought. And the movement of the earth below him, while distracting and very breathtaking, was not simply the turn of middle-sized planet on its axis. Rather, the facts were that the time-and-whatever ship had been hurtling towards the distant spot since the Doctor had first pointed at it, and they were coming up on it with a rapidity that verged on the sickening. He shrank away from the door, only to feel her hand on his arm, like steel, holding him in place.

"Oh, ye of little faith," she says, softly. "Stay put, Professor. We're not nearly done yet."