He's putting sugar in his coffee when it happens. This process has been known to go on for a while— his sister claimed to have clocked him at three minutes, but his sister is prone to sibling-related hyperbole— and so he has only managed to dissolve three cubes when the ground starts to shake and, understandably, interrupts him. His lanky form sways for a second like a well-constructed skyscraper, and then he stumbles a step to the left, two steps to the right, and another half step that brings him back where he had started, albeit slightly turned around. He directs an interrogative glare at the counter.

The girl behind it shrugs. "Don't blame me for the earth, Professor," she says. "I'm only a part-timer."

He turns the quizzical glare on his coffee instead. It isn't that he's unhappy with it—though it needs a little sweetening up, decidedly— it's more that he isn't entirely in control over who or what he glares at, these days. His face seems to be making its own decisions without any help from him. He'd tried a smile at young mother earlier in the week and set her attendant toddler to hysterical weeping.

"Well, don't let it happen again," he says to the girl behind the counter of the café cart, with mock severity. It's easier to be easy when he isn't looking at people. She's probably holding her hands up in surrender, too, but he can't risk turning to check.

"Right you are, Professor."

He's tipped her well, he thinks, so probably she won't mind too awfully much if he tries a smile on her on his way past. So he does; it doesn't hurt to practice. But she's turned away from him to clean the espresso machine, and that's probably just as well.

Out from under the cart's canopy, he moves towards work, towards the morning lecture, towards what makes him need high-sugar-content and caffeine in the first place: students.

None of them are there, though, and he supposes this shouldn't seem like such a surprise. The batch he's ended up with this year are not the most reliable lot, especially when it comes to timing. He often thinks he needs some sort of high-level training in dealing with young persons and their total lack of a realistic approach to scheduling. He's certain that all of them are late because of either skateboarding or makeup application. Or possibly applying makeup while skateboarding, which just seems like asking for the accidental loss of an eye.

The girl who runs in at this point looks as though it's the makeup that's been keeping her. Probably not the skateboarding, not with how her hair looks, loose and dark and flowing. She wears a dark purple suit that he thinks he saw once on David Bowie, and a skinny tie. She is very pretty, and very young. Her eyes are enormous enough to give him a faint sense of vertigo, as though he's going to fall in.

"Oh!" she says, and stops and stares at him. The vertigo intensifies. "I didn't think anyone would be here."

"Well of course I'm here," he says, gesturing to his blackboard, chalk between his fingers. "I'm lecturing this morning. Where else would I be?"

"Erm," she says, looking thoughtful, "hiding from the end times with the rest of the proles?"

"Ah," he says, understanding now, "you're looking for Advanced Government. Two doors down. Professor Tucker will be waiting for you, I'm sure."

"Well, he won't actually," she says. "I don't want him, and he isn't there. And if I was looking for Advanced Government, Earth is hardly the planet I'd start with." She laughs a bit at this, clearly not expecting him to get the joke but not the slightest bit concerned about seeming rude. He's about to remonstrate but there's a rumbling noise from afar off, and then a shaking, and his blackboard vibrates off the wall and snaps in half.

"What in the seventh ring of hell—"

She snaps her fingers. "Retro Theology. Three doors to the left."

He's stabilizing himself on the desk. She's still wearing the manic grin. And David Bowie's suit, she hasn't managed to lose that in the last few seconds, either. But suddenly she seems ready to get down to business, though he is at a loss as to which business she's concerned with. She's a student, and students are known for ridiculous pranks, but he doesn't really think they're capable of causing earthquakes.

"Nothing for it," she says, as the building shakes around them once more. A bit more subtly this time, though, from which he takes a glimmer of hope. "We're going to have to run."

He is really, really opposed to the idea.

"I'm really, really opposed to that idea."

"Really?" She goes wide-eyed. "Well, how do you feel about being squashed beneath several tons of bricks? Are you in favor of that? 'Cause this building's about to go, you know, and that's where you'll end up."

"How do you know the building's about to—"

There is nothing subtle about the shaking now. When it finally subsides, he gets up from underneath the desk, looking with hunted eyes up at the ceiling.

"Right. Now." She presses her hands together and points at him. "Are you physically capable of running?"

He snaps at her, annoyed. "What do you think?"

"I think you're wasting time. You're wasting time, and that's one thing you're running short on." He flinches— does she mean his age? Or something more sinister, is this some sort of warning or a threat or— but she's ignoring him. She grabs at his hand. "So put on your best eyebrows, and God save the Queen."

Tremors. Oh, the tremors. The earth is languishing in its pain, and he can feel it in the back of his teeth, can taste it with his liver. The earth has gut-rot, and none of this is right. She tugs him onwards, and he can hear things crashing behind him. The building. Is anyone dying? Has he lost any students? He can't stop and look, she won't let him.

At the edge of his hearing, or maybe he isn't hearing it at all, maybe it's just in his head, maybe he can feel it through her skin and her hand in his—

They're all fine.

He believes it. What choice does he have other than to believe it? She's brought him outside now, and he's trying to catch his breath, which is eluding him. He doubles over, puts his hands on his knees.

She looks down at him quizzically.

"Alright?" she says.

He doesn't even dignify that with an answer.

Everyone is gone. The building has collapsed. She has brought them to the café cart, and she is behind the counter busily making herself a tea before he even realizes that she's moved. She's even found an apron to put on, to keep her pristine jacket from spots.

"Where is everyone?" he manages.

"Warp hole," she says.

"I don't know what that means."

"I know."

He waits, but she's busy with the tea things.

"Well, are you going to tell me?"

"Not at the moment. How do you think we escaped the building?"

"We—" He pauses a moment and collects himself. "You told me to run, and you took my hand, and we got out before it collapsed."

"Oh, was that a run?" she says, raising her eyebrows.

He grits his teeth. "No, it was a very fast walk."

"You run like a penguin."

"It was a very fast walk."

"Oh. You walk like a penguin, then." She takes a speculative sip of her tea. "Come on, don't be angry. You're not a young man, this can't be the first time in your life that you've heard it."

It isn't. He grits his teeth anyway.

"Well, don't let it get about," he says.

"Why not?"

"Well— look, don't laugh, but there are people in this university that look up to me." She's laughing. "I said don't laugh!"

"Well, I can't help it, can I? You said something funny, and I laughed. Isn't that what you humans do?" Another sip of tea. His eyes narrow, sharpen, focus on her.

"What," he says. "What did you just say? What does that mean? 'You humans.'"

The guilty expression on her face feels like a little bit of a triumph in and of itself. "What?" she says, innocently.

"You just said 'you humans.'"

"No I didn't."

"Yes you did, just then."

"No, you said 'you humans.' Just now."

"Only because I was quoting you!"

"Oh really?" she says, airily. "What's the matter, professor? Feel that you're above all the rest of them, do you?"

"Them," he says. "There you go again. Exactly what is going on?"

"Oh, nothing," she says, demurely. "Only having tea and a chat about your penguin walk. You're the one who insists on bringing it down to semantics." She looks thoughtful. "Do you suppose you could do that quickly enough to get away from immediate danger?"

"Why?" he says suspiciously. "Are you planning on putting me in immediate danger? I mean— again?"

"I'm just exploring my prospects. Examining my options. I've been traveling alone for a while now, you know. I could use an extra pair of hands, and you definitely have those."

She's eyeing his fingers now. He puts his hands behind his back, self-consciously.

"Where is everyone?"

"Told you. Warp hole."

"Tell me in a way I understand."

"Ah," she says, "now we're getting somewhere. Tea?" He shakes his head, and she shrugs. "Warp hole. I sent them somewhere out of the way, so no one gets hurt while I sort this out. Something's causing all these earthquakes, and I need to find out what it is."

"So everyone's fine, then?"

"For the moment, yeah." She looks at him. "Are you glaring at me? I really can't tell."

"No— or, well, I don't mean to. I probably mean to smile, or look relieved, or something. I'm sorry, my face is malfunctioning," he says, apologia apologia, he'll never get away from it.

"Is it?" She tilts her head to the side. "I think it's quite a nice face. I would like to see it, oh, ten or so years ago. Have you angry, maybe quite shouty. Ordering people around and running about like a penguin. I'll have to put that on my list."

"What list?" He likes her voice. Even though she's done nothing but insult him since they met three minutes ago. Well, insult him and save his life, simultaneously. So obviously she's quite talented, as well as pretty. And her voice is soft, and her hands are warm.

"List of one hundred and one places to visit, of course," she says. "You should be flattered that you rate it. I mean, so far, it's just you ten years ago and Marcus Aurelius."

"I don't understand you." But he understands enough to be blushing, slightly.

"That's alright," she says quickly, "no one does, not even me, you shouldn't beat yourself up about it."

Then the tremors again— this time without even a rumble to warn them— and the earth shakes and shakes itself as though it is a very wet dog, or as though there is something on its back and it is trying to remove it. A very determined something. He stumbles sideways, and she stumbles sideways, and they collide impossibly somewhere in the middle, and she has turned him somehow so when they go down he lands on top of her, and she's all soft and lovely in her little jacket, and if it weren't for the fact that he thinks she probably was trying to protect him from breaking a hip or something, he'd be quite turned on just now. Oh, who is he kidding.

Lying on top of her, he thinks she has too many heart beats. She's probably been collecting them for years, he thinks.

He rolls half off of her but she grabs at his jacket.

"Are those jelly babies in your pocket?" she says, her eyes on his.

He bites his lip. He's not going to say it. Nope. Absolutely not. No.

"No, I'm just happy to see you," he says, and groans at himself, swiping a hand over his face and wishing he could cut his tongue out, something, anything. Dirty old man, she's thinking now, probably, though in reality it's just that his mouth runs away with him.

But she laughs.

She laughs, and he stares at her.

"No, really though," she says, "are they?" Her hand is in his pocket, and she's finding out for herself, and of course they are. She pulls the packet out and sits up, and he subsides next to her and watches her examine the contents thoroughly. She takes one out, and bites its head off with enough ferocity that he has to wince and lick his lips simultaneously.

"Who are you?" He sounds somewhat aghast, and somewhat admiring, and possibly far too lustful at the moment, but he's in control of absolutely none of this, so he hopes she'll forgive him and just pretend none of that had happened. But her soft eyes have grown keener, and she tilts her head to the side to look at him slightly askance.

"Hmmm," she says.

He blinks rapidly.

"I really do want to know," he says, with a tad bit of apologia imbedded in the words.

"Hmmm," she says again, though she's starting to smile, so maybe she's looking past the ingrained admiration and lust, and maybe she does believe him after all.

"I'm the Doctor."

He huffs out a slight breath, mouth open, and nods for a moment before it catches up with him that she hasn't really told him anything at all. "Doctor who?" he says.

"Exactly," she says, and grins. "Anyway. Who're you when you're at home? Or not at home, either one. I'd like to know what to call you on holiday, too."

"Smith," he says. "Professor John Smith."

She holds out a hand to him and he takes it. Her hands are tiny, impossibly tiny in his, and he thinks they must be made of steel. She shakes his hand solemnly.

"I thought you must be. Glad to know you, Professor," she says.

"Pleasure's all mine, Doctor," he says.

She stands up, depositing his jelly babies in the pocket of her coat. The pocket must be bigger on the inside, is all he can figure, because the coat is cut quite close and the packet doesn't even make a bulge. "Right. Enough play time. Let's get this sorted."

"Er," he says. "Get what sorted, exactly."

"Mysterious earthquakes," she says, "the earth shaking itself around like it's got something on its back?" He blinks at her slowly. "You with your malfunctioning face. Come on. Nothing about this is normal. This isn't California. Get up." She holds out her hand, wriggles the fingers till he takes hold, and then pulls him up beside her with an ease that belies her size. She makes sure he's stable, then starts off towards the blue police box he had utterly failed to notice earlier.

He follows at a slight distance, still unsure of where she's going, and even more uncertain of what she intends to do when she gets there.

"C'mon," she tosses over her shoulder, and pulls a key from a pocket. He stands behind her awkwardly as she unlocks the box and jiggles the handle a little. She turns to look at him and raises her eyebrows. "Are you coming?"

"Ah," he says. "Er."

"What?"

"Well, I mean—" He gestures towards it, the whole tableau of it, biting at his lip. "It's just a little box, isn't it?"

"Mm," she says noncommittally. "So?"

"So what will people say, you know, if they see a man and woman going into a small blue box together?"

"Hmm." She looks at the ground for a moment, contemplatively. "Apart from the fact that there's really no one around to notice, I think they'll say, Well done you two, enjoy yourselves, you're only young once."

"Well, that's just it, isn't it?"

"What's just it?"

"Young once. I mean, don't you think they'll notice?" The nonexistent people. He's aware that he's being ridiculous.

"Notice what?"

He tugs at his collar, uncomfortably. "Age difference. There is one, you know."

"Ah." Her eyes flash and shine, and her dimples appear as if by magic. How does she do that? "I know. I really do. Believe me, Professor. If you're okay with it, so am I."

She doesn't seem to be lying. He watches her for a moment, just to be sure, then he throws his hands in the air.

"Ah, what the hell," he says, and advances to her side. His head is briefly full with visions of his younger self, tons of them, all inexplicably giving him thumbs up signals and huge skeevy grins full of capped teeth.

But it isn't what he's thought, and it certainly isn't what his lecherous younger self keeps trying to tell him, because the inside of the box is not like the outside. The inside of the box is something beautiful and otherworldly, there are things that turn and things that don't turn and things that go up and down and big round things on the walls, and a leather arm chair that he would really very much like to sit down in for a moment, just to get his bearings. The Doctor is moving around the console in the middle, pulling levers and pressing buttons and humming to herself.

"Welcome," she says, "to my home away from home."

"This," he says, "is."

She looks up at him for a moment.

"Words fail you, I presume."

He nods.

"Ah, I thought that might happen." She bounces away from the console for a moment and hands him a Post-It. On it are a few complicated scribbles of interlocking circles and dots, and below it, it says It's bigger on the inside. "Just, you know. In case you were wondering."

"What is it?" he manages at last.

"Apart from bigger on the inside?" she prompts. "This is the TARDIS. Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. It's my ship. My time ship. And space. My time and space ship. It travels in time. And space. Am I making myself clear?"

"No," he says.

"Good," says the Doctor, with some satisfaction, and directs her attention instead to the screens ranged around the console, ignoring him for the moment. He takes advantage of the leather armchair. It feels good to sit. It feels solid. "Oh," she says, and then she says, "Oh!" again, in some surprise.

"What? What is it?"

She stands back from the console with her hands on her hips.

"That's easy," she says, "that's dead easy, that's not even a one on the Richter scale. Well, metaphorically speaking. Something under the earth's crust, irritating it, making it heave around to try and get it out. Like when you get a splinter too deep to reach with a needle, and eventually your body will eject it. Like that."

"Easy?" he says. "That's good. What is it?"

"Zombie dinosaurs," says the Doctor.

He blinks.

"I beg your pardon."

"Dinosaurs," says the Doctor, "that are also zombies. I mean, dead dinos that have been reanimated. I don't know if there's a powerful voodoo curse, or if someone's just been watching too much Night at the Museum, but your four-year-old nephew's favorite fantasy is about to come true. You humans and your fossil fuels."

"What."

"It's alright," she says gently, "I can fix it. Send it back to sleep. Or set it on fire. No problem." She taps at a few buttons. "Fancy a trip to the center of the earth?"

He doesn't think he does. He thinks he's stepped into what he thought was a wading pool and found the Pacific Ocean. He thinks when she looks at him like that he feels as though he's about to be eaten by a shark.

"Er, ah— no," he starts, walking backwards a step or two.

"Too late," says the Doctor. She springs past him, patting him on the arm as she goes, and darts for the door. She opens it, and the heat is enough to knock him over— but not nearly what it should be, not if they are where she says they are. He has no reason to doubt that they are, considering that they clearly are not where they were a moment ago. No grassy green out there, no collapsed building— just redness, fires, like the heart of a volcano, and something large and black and moving with only the sound of bonecreak, which reminds him uncomfortably of the noises his knees make when he gets out of bed in the morning.

Redness, fires, bonecreak, and gigantic skeletons walking about in the burning gloom, he can see them as he steps through the door, and he presses his back up against the outside of the box, and stares and stares.

"Professor," says the Doctor, who is standing at his side with her arms coolly folded, "you look as though your eyes are going to pop out of your skull."

"Well, there's all these zombie dinosaurs, you see," he murmurs faintly, "and I— I was only dressed for, I don't know, vampiric unicorns or something."

She laughs at him, but for once it isn't unkind.

"Very good," she says, approvingly. "That's very good."

"So," he says. "This is what's causing the earthquakes."

"This is the itch that the earth can't scratch," she says, "yes."

He knows a little something about itches that can't be scratched.

"So what are you going to do?"

"What'm I going to do? Easy. Set 'em on fire." He blinks at her. She laughs a little, that dismissive laugh again, and pats him on the arm till he twitches slightly. She shakes something in her hand, it looks like an unusual bit of tech and makes a little whirring noise. "Exploding them's the easy bit, that's just part one. Reanimated dinosaurs are just a symptom. The real question is, what's causing them?"

"Okay," he says, guardedly, "what's causing them?"

"No idea," she says happily. "But I'm going to enjoy finding out. Think I can trace a signal back. Likely to be something originating from space, or maybe the Ice Age. Or maybe the Ice Age in space." She stops and grins at him for a moment. "Care to come with me and find out?"

"I— don't think I— " Oh, but don't be ridiculous, for once in your life. He licks his lips. "Can I get back to you on that?"

She shrugs. "Don't see why not. I suppose you want to get back home for a bit, get your bearings, yeah?"

"That— would be lovely, yes, thank you very much."

Shrugs again. "Easy peasy."

"Really?

"Really." She shepherds him back into the box and closes the door behind them. He turns toward her and fixes her with his most serious face.

"If you get me home safely," he says, "without blowing me up along with all the other dinosaurs, I will— I will buy you some coffee and chips."

"Promises, promises," she says, hums, smiles.

"Explosions, explosions," he murmurs back.

There they are, then, he can hear them outside the box, the ranting, dying wailings of the ranting dying dead, the distant far-off booms, and he can close his eyes and see mushroom clouds.

"Do you mean to be frowning like that?" she asks him.

"Probably," he says, eyes still closed. He's focusing on his breathing. "Are we home yet?"

She's been doing something complicated with the levers, he knows. She stops doing whatever it was she was doing and there's a sort of thud. It sounds like finality. He wonders what will have changed when he walks outside. Maybe everything. Maybe nothing. He knows what he has his money on.

"I let them out of the warp hole, by the way," she says. "Now that we got the dinosaurs sorted."

He hesitates. He just isn't sure how to react to a sentence like that. It isn't within his normal perview.

"Ah," he says. "Good."

He stumbles out into the green— just the same— and turns and looks upwards and sure enough, there it is— POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX— also just the same as when he went in. It's him that's changed, now. He shakes his head, mouth slightly open, having to remind himself to breathe.

"That is amazing," he says. "That is just— that is just bloody amazing."

"I'm glad you like her," says the Doctor, closing the door behind her and turning a smile on him. "I mean it. I'm really quite touched."

"So that means—"

"I'm not from Earth."

He narrows his eyes at her. "Then what are you doing here? Why are you here?"

She shrugs. "To help."

"Yeah, I got that, I got that. But why? If you're not from Earth— why are you helping us?"

She looks away, and smiles at nothing much.

"I don't know," she says. "I like you silly humans, and your silly human ways. I feel— proprietorial. Earth husbandry. I don't know."

He thinks he might be smiling, but it's really too soon to tell.

"I don't know, either," he says, "but I'm glad."

He steps closer to the police box.

"I remember these, you know," he says, smoothing a hand over the weathered wood.

She watches him, and the tenderness in his touch echoes the tenderness in her eyes.

"So do I," she says.

He turns thoughtful. "Doctor," he says.

"Professor."

"Everyone's back now. There are people— like, there are people watching us. There are people who watched us come out of the box."

"Yes," she says, and her grin is impish. "Think of the chat round the water cooler in the morning. You'll be a local hero."

That isn't even really what he should be thinking about, and he knows it. He tries again.

"You said you put all of them in the wormhole thingy."

"Warp hole. Yes."

"And you seemed awfully surprised that I was still there."

She looks up at him now. "Yes. I was."

"So you'd tried to put me in the warp hole, too."

Her soft eyes are unfathomable. "Yes. I did."

"So why didn't I go?" he says. "What makes me different?"

"I don't know," she says, honestly. "It's almost like— you didn't want to be protected. You wanted to be where the action was. Are you that kind of man, Professor? Do you need to be where the action is?"

"I don't know what kind of man I am," he says, and she is not the only one who is surprised with his honesty. He is so honest, he has to look away from her. "Anyway, they're all back now."

"Ah yes," she says, and he can hear her smile. "All those impressionable young minds, looking to you for guidance and exemplary conduct."

"Just doing my part to get them used to disappointment," he says, and now he can see the smile, because he's looking back at her. It makes him want to smile, too. "No use pretending that I am anything other than what I am."

She narrows her eyes a little. "Well, what's wrong with pretending? I won't hear a word against it."

Again he has the sensation that she's talking about something entirely different than he suspects.

"Sure," he says. "Pretending's— pretending's great, if you've got the knack for it."

"Oh, I have," she assures him. "I pretend things constantly. It's a hobby. Everyone needs a hobby."

"Very true."

"So why don't we pretend?" she says.

He regards her seriously, eyes hooded. "Pretend— what?"

"That we're together," she says. "Give them a thrill, eh?"

He's just about to protest that the prospect of seeing their professor with a much younger woman is unlikely to give his students much of the sort of thrill to which she is referring when she takes a whole double handful of his jacket lapels and pulls him down to her level. It is quite thrilling, if not exactly for the audience which the Doctor has intended. She is enthusiastic, far too enthusiastic about the pretense, much more along the lines of someone who has something to prove— that's what he thinks, and then realizes that he's analyzing, and thinks that he shouldn't be analyzing, he should be kissing, so he refocuses his energies and really starts to settle into it, as awkward and unexpected as it is. She bites on his lip a little; that hasn't happened in years, apart from when he had that one really vivid dream after he watched Titanic, and that was, what, 1998? He's analyzing again, he really ought to stop. He's getting sidetracked. Oh bollocks. What is wrong with him? Her hand slides up his neck and her fingers thread through his hair and he's thinking of Kate Winslet. He needs to learn to live in the moment, dammit.

This is going on longer than he expects. His sister would be clocking this at two minutes and counting.

She lets him go at last, just when he's on the verge of passing out, or of something even more immediate and embarrassing, and stands before him with that smile. He's panting, and she's not even winded.

"How—" he manages.

"Oh," says the Doctor, and waves a hand airily. "Respiratory bypass system. I've got the stamina of a much younger woman."

"What," he says, still gasping slightly like a landed fish, "you mean like, the stamina of a fetus? Because you're incredibly young. I don't know if you realized that. I hate to keep bringing it up. You're quite young, and I'm—" He falters. She tilts her head and looks at him curiously. "Not," he finishes, somewhat lamely.

"Ah well," the Doctor sing-songs, and tweaks his nose. "Where are we, by the way?"

He's still in recovery mode.

"Ah," he says, and has to think about it. Mars seems unlikely. "Glasgow."

"Ahhh," says the Doctor, as though all is explained. "That'll be the accent then. So." She smiles at him gently. "You've seen what's inside the planet. How do you feel about a trip to the stars?"

"Are you sure?" he asks her, earnestly. "I mean, you see me. You could— you could have anyone."

"Don't want anyone," she says, "want you. But what I want isn't the only factor here, Professor. I have to ask you, but you have to be the one to say yes. So." She has a hand on his arm, she has had this whole time, and he hasn't even noticed. "So," she says again, gently. "What do you say?"

"This is what you do," is what he says. "You travel around and— fix things. Save people."

"Doing what I can," she says. "Just passing through, doing what any old idiot with a screwdriver and a box would do, if they had the chance."

If they had the chance.

"Is it worth it," he says. "All the travel."

She smiles, and gives that same little shrug. "Sometimes it breaks your heart," she says, with probably the most honesty she's given him till now. "Sometimes it builds you a new one."

So then he smiles, he really smiles, he gives her the first true smile he's worn in years; since before Diane died, really. He didn't know he still had those. He must have kept a stockpile somewhere, locked up deep within. He must have been saving them up, because he feels positively wreathed in teeth.

And she smiles back. She smiles back, that's the wonder of it. She smiles back, and her eyes are softly shining, and she reaches out and up for his hand. She waits for him to reach back, and he does— out and down— and he wraps his fingers around her hand, her much smaller hand, her quite tiny hand, and he feels the delicate bones, he feels the gravity of her centering his feet on the earth.

She says, "Are you ready, Professor?"

And he says, "Let's go."