Jo watched with satisfaction as the mine shaft was blown up.

The eruption blew dirt and brickwork hundreds of feet into the air in a roiling brown cloud, bricks pinwheeling out like falling flowers.

"Good riddance!" she said with venom.

"Now, Jo," the Doctor started.

She turned, her voice high with ire. "Don't you 'Now, Jo' me. We spent all day down a mine with a mile long Dire Worm, getting chased by zombie soldiers under its influence, and falling into a nest of its young." She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the mushroom cloud as it dissipated. "And you almost got shot! If someone hadn't shot the worm in the eye that one soldier would have killed you! I'm glad they blew up the mine." Her face turned mulish.

"The worm was already gone," he said soothingly. "The atmosphere here was killing it anyway." He brushed a hand over her hair, and smiled down at her, she looked like a vengeful Cocker Spaniel puppy. Vibrating with motion even when standing still.

She turned those puppy dog brown eyes up at him, she rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well, it's a good thing for the locals that we turned up. It took them two armies to get that thing corralled and even then it was zombifiying them."

"Zombifying? Really Jo!" he snorted down his impressive nose at her.

She grinned at him. "The sky here's pretty though." The sky was almost neon bright, a brilliant fluorescent blue, with equally brilliant streamers of glowing peach and fluorescent pink edging in behind the cloud as the sun set.

"It was good luck for us that local girl came down to lead us out of the mine. I was totally lost! Where did she go anyway? I wanted to thank her." Jo turned in a circle surveying the mixed army camps that had gathered to fight the worm.

"Who?" the Doctor asked absently, he was watching as the combined military forces struck their camp and started to pack up. In many ways they'd reminded him of working with UNIT, but without all the international friction.

"Oswin," Jo said. "The brown haired girl. Can you see her?" Jo stood up on her platform heels and peered around. The Doctor grinned, the local girl hadn't been very tall either. He scanned the crowd from his higher vantage point.

"There she is!" Jo yelled. She waved excitedly. "Be right back, Doctor." Jo trotted off, her go go boots covered in dirt, her miniskirt plastered with mud, with worm bile in her hair, and yet still managing to look fresh and happy. He smiled and tucked his hands in his pockets. Young women. Always such a delight.

He watched the armies some more as he waited for her. The armies here were more gender balanced than back on Earth. Nearly equal numbers of men and women. No doubt why they had been comfortable sending a young woman down into the mines looking for their lost soldiers.

His eyes suddenly stopped and locked on a figure in the crowd. A woman walked toward him, separating from the throng. Her head of riotous blond curls caught his attention. Going by her uniform, she was one of the foreign soldiers. Going by her confident demeanor, an experienced one.

She was marked with dirt from the mines, as they all were, her face partially obscured by a swipe of mud where she'd drawn her hand over it. But she was obviously an attractive woman, with strong features. By the gleaming look she gave him out of the corner of her eye, she knew it too.

She drew an appreciative hand over his chest, over the velvet jacket and frills, as she passed. "Bonjour, Sweetie," she said in a husky voice, he could hear the laughing undertone as she continued on. He watched as she sashayed away.

"Who was that, Doctor?" Jo asked, as she bounced back up.

"Hm? No idea. She's lovely though." The nicely curvy uniform disappeared back into the crowd. Really, UNIT could do with some more female soldiers to liven up the place.

"Perhaps we should get back to the Tardis," he said, tearing his attention away from the odd encounter. Briefly he wondered why the Tardis had translated her greeting in French. He'd have to check the circuits.

Jo leaned on his arm and shook out her boot. "Yeah." He looked back down at her.

"I'd like to get cleaned up," she said, pulling her boot back on. She put her hands on her hips and cocked her head at him. "I wasn't exactly dressed to go drag you out of a wormhole."

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