If you want to help me financially, you can do it on https://www.patreon.com/NeverluckySMILE
Did it have to burn?
Danni would wonder that quite a lot for a good long time. She was heading out of her bedroom, towards the console room, looking for Donna. She had a lifetime, apparently, of spending time with the Doctor and his companions. She'd woken up with the great idea to try and get to know everyone.
She wasn't sure where her grief was yet, but she was sure it was coming. Any moment now. For the time being, she was feeling productive. She'd saved someone's life the day before, today was a day to do more good.
Oh, god, what if everyone hated her?
She didn't get the chance to find Donna, though, as the Vortex Manipulator decided to spark into life. She grimaced, then groaned, as it heated up and she was flashed out of existence and into the TARDIS console.
For a moment she was on her own. Maybe she hadn't jumped. Maybe she had just been moved through the TARDIS. She still wasn't sure on all of the rules. Maybe she should start making a list.
The front door opened and the Doctor walked in. Still Ten, which just added to her theory that she had moved a whole twenty feet down the hallway. She smiled at him and he looked a little surprised to see her. He then smiled back.
"Danni-Girl," he greeted. "Coming for a visit?"
"Oh yes," she replied. "Just thought I'd drop in." He seemed surprised to see her, but he was wearing the same blue suit he'd wear through all three of his seasons on and off, it still gave her no indication of where, or rather when she was. "Where am I?"
His face dropped slightly. It wasn't a 'I've just lost a loved one' type of look, but he still looked rather solemn. "I've just dropped Martha off," he told her as he headed up towards the console. He quickly set them into flight. "We had fun, but I did say only one trip." She scoffed at him. "What?"
"You are so going back," she said. She knew where she was, she knew the episode well. She had a bit of a soft spot for Mark Gatiss-related episodes.
Had a soft spot for Mark Gatiss-related.
The TARDIS was right; tenses were hard.
"No, no, I'm not," he protested. "It was only supposed to be one trip, as a thanks."
She sighed, walking over to his side, leaning against the console so she could see the look on his face. He looked pensive, like he didn't believe his own words. She scoffed again. "Yes, you are," she said in a singsong voice.
"Oh, is this you seeing the future again?" he asked, his tone a little mocking. She shrugged, acting like she had no idea what had happened in this episode.
"More the past," she said cheekily. "'Change what it means to be human'? I remember this; you can't resist."
"It was nothing, people say stuff like that all the time. It's just to hype up some product he's created," he replied with a bit of a pout at her pointing out his habit of running head first into trouble, especially when it revolved around humanity. "So yes, I can."
"Yes, probably," she agreed. "But why would you? You know there's more to it than that. That's why we're just hovering here, isn't it?"
He looked down at her, ready to protest his innocence, but then rolled his eyes. "How do you know all this?" he asked.
Once again the dilemma of telling him about his life being a TV show reared its ugly head. She still hadn't made a decision on it, after all who would really like that. "Do you always give in to me so easily?" she asked in return.
"Yes," he said and she laughed. "It's starting to become a bit of an issue."
"Just lean into it," she told him. He quickly put them into flight again and she held onto the console. Maybe, just maybe, she could get used to travelling. He did seem to like her, after all. She could totally be friends with the Doctor.
The Doctor rushed over to the door and she followed, sticking her head out in the gap he created when he opened the door. Martha was still stood there, staring at them, bewildered.
"No, I'm sorry," the Doctor declared. "Did he say he was going to change what it means to be human?"
~0~0~0~
Danni, before she had been thrown head-first into a life of time travel and aliens, had been a student. She'd shared a flat with three other people, none of whom had been her best friend because they'd been much too disorganised to be able to find affordable living places with each other. So, seeing Martha who was only a few years older than her with her own apartment was amazing to her. She could only hope to be that financially stable when she finished university.
Which she would never do now.
"So," Martha started, hanging up her phone. "Tish has already put me on the guest list, but with only a plus one."
Danni stopped spinning on the spot, trying not to dwell too much on the fact she'd never own her own home, to look at her. "That's alright. The Doctor will stay behind, won't you?"
The Doctor looked at her indignantly. "No, I will not," he protested. "You can be my plus one."
"I don't think…" Martha began but Danni waved off her concerns.
"It'll be fine," she reassured her. "You just have to have the massive overconfidence that it'll work and people will just go with it. You say he's your plus one, he says that I'm his plus one and because you say it like it's true, it must me." She motioned to the Doctor. "You've seen him in action enough, you know I'm right."
Martha took a look at the Time Lord before nodding. "Yeah, you're right," she agreed. "But it's Black Tie…"
Danni's eyes lit up. "Oh, oh, oh!" she cried. "I know exactly what we need to do. The TARDIS has her own wardrobe, we should take a look." She headed to the TARDIS, glancing back at the Doctor, who hadn't moved from sofa as he flicked through the television channels.
How was it that she'd managed to get herself stuck travelling with the Doctor?
"That means you as well," she told him. He pouted.
"Do I have to?" he whined.
"Yes, you do."
He sighed. "I do give into you far too much," he grumbled as he stood up, stretching out his gangly limbs.
"As it should be, Spaceman," she replied before pulling Martha into the TARDIS and down to the wardrobe, where lines upon lines of dresses and other clothes stretched out in front of them.
"It's huge!" Martha exclaimed and Danni nodded.
"I know. She's wonderful," Danni replied. She supposed, up until this point, Martha really hadn't had the chance to explore the TARDIS. She and the Doctor just ran from one experience to the next. "Even if slightly too large to sort through." She looked up at the ceiling. "Unless you have a fantastic blue box to help."
~0~0~0~
Martha chose a purple V-Neck dress, one that she had found almost instantly as Danni discarded everything she found. It wasn't that she didn't like what she found, quite the opposite. The TARDIS had done such a wonderful job at finding her something she would like to wear that she couldn't make a decision. So Martha had left her to trying to decide between two dresses, heading out of the TARDIS to the Doctor.
He had, with a little bit of grumbling, changed into a black tuxedo. He looked incredibly uncomfortable as he pulled at the black bowtie around his neck.
"Will I do?" she asked him, spinning on the spot to show off her outfit.
"Very nice," he replied and she frowned slightly at his lack of enthusiasm. He continued to tug at his tie like it was strangling him, undoing it. She rolled her eyes and stepped forward, batting his hand away so she could retie it for him.
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," she murmured.
"You look fine, I told you," Danni stated as she stepped out of the TARDIS after her. She'd settled on a strapless blue dress just after Martha had left, glad that she'd done her makeup when the other woman had been there. She loved the multi-layered-effect that the dress had because she could swish it around her legs, which was just too fun to not do. She had put a blue bow in her hair to match the one on the side of the dress and topped the outfit off with dark blue heeled shoes.
She'd never had to dress up for a fancy event before. She was rather enjoying it. She was also rather unsteady in the heels, but she was certain she would get used to it.
The Doctor blinked at her, looking like he'd never seen her dressed up before either. His mind drifted to the first time he had met her, at the differences between then and now, before shaking his head to get rid of the thoughts. He definitely knew that hadn't happened for her yet, she was much too young for that.
"Doctor?" Danni asked, pulling him back into the present.
He cleared his throat. "Yes?"
"Is it alright?" she asked, wondering if that was why he had been staring at her. "I've never been to anything posh before."
"You look fine. You really suit blue," he replied. She grinned happily – she was complimented by the Doctor – then linked arms with Martha.
"I've been sucked into a universe I thought didn't exist," she started as they headed out. Martha didn't actually live too far away from the venue Lazarus was hosting his event in, so they had decided to walk there. "Torn from everyone I knew and loved into a life of a time-travelling alien man. What's the best way to cheer yourself up? Go to a posh do and make fun of rich folk!"
Martha laughed. "And eat all of the food," she added and Danni nodded.
"I knew there was something I liked about you," she started before turning to the Doctor, about to ask his opinion. He was fiddling with the cuffs of the white shirt he was wearing. "Leave them alone."
He did, with a bit of a pout. "Whenever I wear this something bad always happens," he grumbled.
"It's not the outfit, that's just you," Martha replied. "Anyway, I think it's suits you. In a James Bond kind of way."
Danni couldn't agree more. She had always loved the Doctor in a suit, and seeing him in the flesh definitely only confirmed that fact rather than detracting from it
The Doctor, evidentially, did not agree with the assessment. "James Bond?" he exclaimed disdainfully.
"Oh yes. I've always loved bow ties, you know?" Danni replied. He frowned before reaching up and adjusting it.
"Really?" he asked, obviously reconsidering the tie. She nodded.
"There's something very... attractive about them," she said pointedly, adding a little flirt to her teasing tone Martha chuckled as the Doctor seemed to decide he liked the suit after all, straightening up as they walked. He was still missing Rose terribly, Martha could tell, but sometimes he'd really try and impress Danni without realising it. It was rather sweet if she didn't think about how rejected she felt.
Their photographs were taken by the members of the press waiting outside the grand building, as if they were actual celebrities and Danni couldn't help but smile brightly throughout the entire process. There had to be perks to living her life intertwined with someone else's, why wouldn't she take the good moments as and when they came?
There was a beautifully grand staircase, lined with a red carpet, that lead them into the main reception room. There was a huge white device proudly on display in the middle of the room consisting of a large capsule with a frosted glass floor and four pillars that displayed the inner workings of the machine. Danni recognised it immediately as Lazarus's machine and she glanced up at the Doctor. Was she supposed to tell him about what was happening when he'd told her off for changing time? He had a point, after all. She had just seen the end of the Ponds, all the way in his future in Manhattan, what if she changed something that meant that never happened and New York remained a harvesting spot for the Weeping Angels? What if she stopped Rose from being sucked into another dimension and the Doctor never met Martha, who would help stop the Master?
Her eyes widened and her heart quickened, panic quickly setting in. What if she screwed time up so much that she caused the whole universe to collapse? And why was she having this massive crisis in the middle of a black-tie event?
A member of the waiting staff walked past them, offering hors d'oeuvres and champagne to the guests. The Doctor took a handful of food off one of the staff, catching her attention as he beamed happily.
"Oh, look, they've got nibbles!" he exclaimed. "I love nibbles." He proceeded to stuff the entire piece of food into his mouth and Danni couldn't help but giggle at him.
"Wonderful manners there, Doctor," she teased him. Martha's sister, Tish, approached them, looking as smart as everyone else in the room.
"Hello," she greeted Martha excitedly, grabbing her sister's arm to get her attention.
"Tish," Martha breathed, having not seen her sister in what felt like ages. The two hugged and Tish pulled back, looking her up and down.
"You look great," she complimented. "So, what do you think? Impressive, isn't it?"
"Very," Martha replied, nodding as she looked around.
"And two nights out in a row for you—that's dangerously close to a social life," her sister teased and Martha rolled her eyes.
"If I keep this up, I'll end up in all the gossip columns."
"You might, actually. Keep an eye out for photographers," Tish warned. "And Mum- she's coming too, even dragging Leo along with her."
"Leo in black tie?" Martha asked in disbelief. "That I must see." Tish looked up at the Doctor, who was stood with Danni munching on his nibbles, obviously a bit confused and a lot intrigued by Martha's new friends.
"This is, uh, the Doctor, and Danni," she introduced. The Doctor moved all of the food into one hand and took Tish's in the other, shaking it enthusiastically.
"Hello," he greeted, while Danni just gave her a quick wave. Her plastered smile said she was more confused by the two people than happy to meet them.
"Are they with you?" she asked Martha, who nodded. "But they're not on the list. How did they get in?"
"He's my plus one," Martha explained.
"And I'm his," Danni added.
"So, this Lazarus bloke," the Doctor interjected before she could question it. "He's your boss?"
"Professor Lazarus, yes," she corrected. "I'm part of his executive staff."
"She's in the PR department," Martha told him with a roll of her eyes.
"Actually, she's head of the PR department, aren't you?" Danni asked as she reached out for a glass of champagne from a passing waiter. Tish nodded, a smile on her face.
"Yes, I am. How did you know?"
"That clipboard. Makes you look very smart and official."
Tish beamed at her. Danni smiled back, taking a sip of the drink. She had thought the same when she'd watched the episode, but Tish seemed like she was slightly overlooked because of Martha being the Doctor. She was obviously rather pleased someone had noticed her.
Danni knew how that felt. Danni was an only child, so while she hadn't had to vie for her parents' attention, she had been surrounded by adults her entire childhood. She had always loved it when someone her age saw her rather than just having her blend into the background. Of course – she took another glance at the Doctor because even though it was very definitely happening, she still couldn't believe he was right there – she didn't mind grabbing the attention of people much older than her either.
"You're joking," Martha exclaimed. Her mother hadn't mentioned that. She felt rather bad for rolling her eyes now.
"I put this whole thing together," Tish stated proudly.
"So do you know what the professor's going to be doing tonight? That looks like it might be a sonic microfield manipulator," the Doctor asked her, nodding over towards the machine in the middle of the room.
Tish's smile immediately dropped. "He's a science geek," she stated, disappointed. "I should've known." She turned her attention away from the slightly good-looking geek and back to her sister. "Gotta get back to work now. I'll catch up with you later." She patted her sister on the arm again and left to mingle with the rest of the guests. The Doctor frowned after her, munching on another bit of food.
"Science geek? What does that mean?"
"That your obsessively enthusiastic about it."
"I do like a man who uses his mind," Danni said to no one in particular, taking a sip out of her glass as she looked around as if she wasn't paying attention. The Doctor grinned despite himself and adjusted his bowtie just like his Eleventh self would do, making her smile. That was always something she'd loved about the show. Even though they were different men, with different actors, you could still see the character run through the middle. She could watch him all day.
She looked down at her glass. It couldn't have been the champagne, after all she'd only just starting drinking it, but maybe she was enjoying herself a little too much.
"Martha," someone called and they turned to see Martha's mum approach with her brother, Leo, on her arm.
Martha stared at her, suddenly absolutely relieved to see her. "Mum!" she cried, rushing over to give her a hug. Her mum laughed slightly in shock, pulling back but keeping a hand loosely in her daughter's hair.
"Oh. All right, what's the occasion?" she asked.
"What do you mean? I'm just pleased to see you, that's all," Martha told her with a bit of a stutter, realising it might seem odd that she had reacted like she hadn't seen her in years. She quickly caught up with her family as Danni and the Doctor watched on from afar.
Danni used to be able to go weeks without seeing her mum and dad. University kept her away for quite a lot of the term time and she became used to not seeing them for long periods of time. Martha, relatively, hadn't been gone long but it was enough for her mother to be suspicious of how happy she was to see her.
If Danni got to see her mother again then she would hug her just as tightly.
She quickly downed the rest of the glass of champagne she had been nursing, forcing herself to wash down the lump that appeared in her throat. The Doctor looked down at her, his head tilted slightly and she caught his look.
"You're analysing me, aren't you?" she asked.
"You've not been here long, have you?" he asked in reply. She shook her head. "I'm sorry."
Danni laughed slightly, with no feeling behind it. "You say that a lot," she told him. "I just need a drink and a distraction." Martha's mum looked over at them, her eyes calculating as she realised that they were with her daughter. "Ah, here's the distraction."
"You disappeared last night," her mum stated pointedly.
"I... just went home," Martha replied with a bit of a shrug. She couldn't exactly tell her the truth, now could she?
"On your own?"
Martha's gaze followed her mother's and she realised what she was implying so she motioned to the pair. "This is a friend of mine, the Doctor, and his plus one Danni," she introduced, putting emphasis on the fact that Danni was with the Doctor.
This didn't seem to calm whatever was bothering her mum down. "Doctor what?"
"No, it's just the Doctor," Martha cut in. "We've been doing some work together."
Leo leant forward and shook his hand, showing them all he wasn't suspicious like his mother. "Alright?" The Doctor nodded, grateful of the greeting
He offered his hand to Danni, who chose to kiss him on the cheek. "Lovely to meet you Leo," she told him sincerely.
The Doctor leant forward and shook her mother's hand. "Lovely to meet you, Mrs Jones. Heard a lot about you."
"Have you? What have you heard, then?" she asked, almost accusing him of lying.
"Oh, you know, that you're Martha's mother and…um…" The Doctor trailed off slightly, realising that he may have oversold his knowledge a bit. "No, actually, that's…that's about it. We haven't had much time to chat, you know, been busy."
"Busy? Doing what, exactly?"
The woman was incredibly suspicious of the Doctor, and to be quite frank Danni couldn't blame her. What mother wouldn't be concerned that her daughter was hanging around a strange older man who seemed to be implying that the trio were…
Oh, of course. Martha's dad.
Danni quickly darted into the conversation, smiling warmly at Martha's mother. "Please ignore him, Mrs Jones. Like all men, he can be a bit of an idiot," she declared, much to his outrage. "Martha has told us all about you, I'd like to say all nice things but you know what daughters are like. I'm sure I've said stuff about my mother I didn't really mean."
Mrs Jones looked at her, smiling slightly now she wasn't paying attention to the Doctor. "I'm sure anything she said to you she wouldn't want to be repeated to me. Danni, was it?" Danni nodded, about to tell Mrs Jones her full name when there was a tapping on a glass. The Doctor sighed in relief as they all turned to see an elderly gentleman stood at the front of the machine.
Danni smiled to herself. She was already helping the Doctor. She could totally pull off this 'companion' thing.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I am Professor Richard Lazarus and tonight I'm going to perform a miracle," he stated.
The Doctor leant down to Danni. "An idiot?" he whispered she nodded, not taking her eyes of the professor. On the show Mark Gatiss had looked like an old man, but it had been a little obvious that he was wearing makeup – Doctor Who had never been known for its big budgets – but in real life he looked… well, he looked really old, and not as much like the actor as she would have expected, considering the Doctor and the companions so far seemed right on the mark.
"Her husband's just left her for a trophy girlfriend," she explained in a whisper. "She's not a big fan of men at the moment, that's why she's so suspicious of you. Seemed the best way to get her attention off of you. You know it's not true."
The Doctor shifted slightly. "Still," he muttered. She shook her head but couldn't help but smiling. He was just a giant child, really, wasn't he?
"It is, I believe," the professor continued. "The most important advance since Rutherford split the atom, the biggest leap since Armstrong stood on the moon. Tonight, you will watch and wonder. Tomorrow, you'll awake to a world which will be changed forever." Camera's flashed around them as he turned and entered the chamber. Two technicians began to flick switches and turn on the machine. It began whirring at high speed and the base began spinning, the four pillars then spinning independently. It lit up with a blue light as energy began to pour into the chamber, causing people to gasp and cover their eyes. Suddenly a warning alarm began sounding.
The Doctor, who had been watching the machine suspiciously, jumped into action. "Something's wrong. It's overloading." He ran over to help the technicians try and get the machine back under control. He pulled out his screwdriver and aimed it at the controls, turning a few knobs to try and calm the system down.
"Somebody stop him! Get him away from those controls!" an old woman cried and Danni turned to glare at her.
"If this thing goes off, it'll take the whole building with it," she snapped. "Perhaps you should keep quiet and let him get on with it!"
The Doctor began pressing buttons on the controls as he tried to work out what was happening, before jumping back over and pulling out a thick silver wire from the back of the main control connected to the capsule. It appeared to be the power, as the pillars slowly started to stop spinning and the whirring calmed down.
Danni's heart was racing a mile a minute. She knew what was going to happen. She knew the machine wasn't going to explode and that Lazarus wasn't killed on the inside of the machine. She knew all of that, but it didn't stop the adrenaline of fear that rushed through her at sight of the bright lights and loud alarms. She couldn't move from where she was stood, so just like in the episode, it was Martha who ran open to try and open the door. The Doctor joined her a moment later.
When they got the door open, smoke poured from inside, obstructing the view of the man inside. Everyone waited, abated breath, until two hands grabbed the doorframe tightly. Out stepped the new and improved Richard Lazarus, now much younger. He reached up to feel his face and he laughed in pure delight at the smoother skin he felt. He was a bit dazed as he moved forward, everyone's attention on him. He threw his arms out.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I am Richard Lazarus. I am 76 years old and I am reborn!"
~0~0~0~
The Doctor didn't care about Professor Lazarus at all. Well, actually, that was a lie. He did care about Professor Lazarus a lot, but he needed more information so he'd taken it upon himself to investigate the machine he had created and find out not only why it went wrong, but what it had done in the first place.
This was the part of the episode that Danni liked to call the 'Confused Doctor' moment. Where the world he was currently stood suddenly made a lot less sense and he needed to work it out so he could either enjoy it or stop the badness spreading.
The other humans in the room didn't seem to care that Lazarus had, effectively, regenerated. In fact, they couldn't get enough of him and were taking pictures and all trying to get at him all at once. Martha watched them fawn over him with a look of horrified bewilderment on her face.
"It can't be the same guy," she stated incredulously. "It's impossible. It must be a trick."
"It's not," Danni replied lowly. The whole room felt so… wrong. She was certain that she'd feel the same even if she'd not seen it before, but what had happened wasn't natural. The young man whose elderly wife was trying to get his attention shouldn't have existed. He wasn't a miracle and she couldn't understand why everyone else was just ignoring it. This wasn't just a plot of a television show; this was real life and it was making her feel queasy.
"I wish it were," the Doctor concurred.
"What just happened, then?" Martha asked, looking up at the Doctor who didn't take his gaze off the man.
"He just changed what it means to be human," he told them both.
"He regenerated," Danni said. The Doctor agreed completely and headed over to Lazarus, who was scoffing a whole tray of hors d'oeuvres like he'd never eaten before in his life.
"Richard!" the elderly lady admonished.
"I'm famished," Professor Lazarus replied vaguely as he continued to eat.
"Energy deficit," the Doctor stated, pulling his attention away from the tray in a way his wife couldn't. "Always happens with this kind of process."
"You speak as if you see this every day, Mr…"
"Doctor," the Doctor corrected. "And, well, no, not every day, but I have some experience in this kind of transformation."
"Nine experiences, to be precise," Danni piped up. The Doctor shot her a look at her cheeky input but didn't correct her.
"That's not possible," Lazarus told them with a slightly derogatory laugh in his voice.
"Using hypersonic sound waves to create a state of resonance," the Doctor rattled off. "That's—That's inspired."
Lazarus looked vaguely impressed. "You understand the theory, then."
"Enough to know that you couldn't possibly have allowed for all the variables."
"No experiment is entirely without risk," he replied with a shrug before continuing to eat.
"That thing nearly exploded. You might as well have stepped into a blender," the Doctor continued.
The old lady looked at him, outraged. "You're not qualified to comment," she snapped.
"If the Doctor hadn't been there to stop it, your husband would be a lovely pile of soup right about now," Danni retorted.
Lazarus looked Danni over for a moment with a leer on his face she really didn't appreciate. "Then I thank you, Doctor," he declared cordially. "But that's a simple engineering issue. What happened inside the capsule was exactly what was supposed to happen. No more, no less."
"You've no way of knowing that until you've run proper tests," Martha pointed out and he laughed.
"Look at me! You can see what happened. I'm all the proof you need."
"This device will be properly certified before we start to operate commercially," the woman reassured them, a happy glint in her eye.
"Commercially?! You are joking!"
"That'll cause chaos," Danni added.
"Not chaos. Change," Lazarus corrected. "A chance for humanity to evolve, to improve."
"This had nothing to do with improving humanity, otherwise you wouldn't be charging people for the privilege. This is all about helping the rich live a little longer," she retorted.
"Not a little longer, my dear. A lot longer. Perhaps indefinitely." He looked her up and down and she stepped slightly closer to the Doctor; his gaze was really starting to make her feel really uncomfortable.
"Richard," the lady snapped, not liking his wandering eyes. "We have things to discuss. Upstairs." She walked off before he could argue and he rolled his eyes before following her.
"Goodbye, Doctor. In a few years, you'll look back and laugh at how wrong you were." He held his hand out to Martha, who took it, going to shake it. Instead, he lifted it up to his lips and placed a kiss on her knuckles. He then did the same to Danni before leaving.
"Ooh, he's out of his depth. No idea of the damage he might have done," the Doctor stated as he watched the professor leave the reception room.
"There's something I'm missing," Danni muttered to herself as she always watched them leave. All she could think about, though, was how happy she was to be away from the creepy man. She didn't appreciate being looked at like that.
"So what do we do now?" Martha asked the pair.
"Now…" the Doctor breathed before looking around. "Well, this building must be full of laboratories. I say we do our own tests."
"Lucky I've just collected a DNA sample then, isn't it?" Martha held up her hand, wiggling her fingers with a smug grin on her face. The moment he had lifted her hand to his lips, she had realised what she had been getting. Just like the Doctor had done the first time he had met her; given her a DNA imprint. Danni giggled and held up her own.
"Me too," she exclaimed happily. This was the good thing about being sucked into a parallel universe you've always watched on television; you get to be part of the action. The Doctor looked between the two hands
"Oh, Martha Jones, Danielle Fielding, you're a pair of stars," he crowed, impressed at the two girls. He grabbed Danni by the arm and led the pair out of the room.
Danni's mind immediately went back to the last time the Doctor had grabbed her. He'd held her hand instead of her arm, but it felt very much the same; like he was trying to ensure she was by his side.
She was friends with the Doctor! How mad was that?!
"That's Danni-Girl to you, Spaceman," she corrected gleefully.