Revery of Silence (Doctor Who)

II - Preparations

In English class Roka doodled onto her papers, head in hand and her mind somewhere else entirely. She hadn't found out anything important or interesting, but at least she had found a backdoor through which the others would be able to sneak into the festival hall. Most of the event would occur outside, with lots of snack booths, but for the students there would be a special dance towards the later hours.

That, at first, had excited the Doctor immensely, until Amy had told that this happened every year, and that there never had been anything interesting happening during these hours. Well... at least not in terms of alien activity, as she had told giggling.

For the rest of the previous day Roka had avoided the Master altogether, also the Doctor and Amy. Instead she had hung out with Fiona, who had dragged her through the city, blabbering on about what boys she fancied and what her family would be doing in summer. This girl was so talkative, it was almost refreshing, because she seldom asked anything and was satisfied with the simplest answers.

Time was ticking by slowly, determined to murder Roka with boredom. Maybe she really should attend a regular school though. With all the knowledge she had gathered over the last century she would come out with damn good grades. Not that she needed them for anything, but the thought was amusing nonetheless.

This time she decided not to skip lunch, but only sporadically engaged in conversations with the other students. All their topics seemed so shallow to her; insignificant and even outright stupid and hilarious. How could they all live like that? Oblivious about all the things out there and their minds only focused on short-lived pleasures without any meaning.

An annoying part inside her started to comprehend why the Master wasn't too fond of her species, and another one wondered what made the Doctor adore it so much.

The ringing of the bell announced the end of the school day and also tore Roka out of her gloomy thoughts. Not entirely though, her mind absent and tired and somehow always wandering back to that weird sensation the Master had shared with her. How could something like that come from someone like him? And how and why did he consider it bad?

All those musings prevented her from paying too much attention to anything at all, and eventually she found herself standing before the TARDIS, hand outstretched and ready to open the door. Only then did she halt and contemplated whether or not to actually enter.

She was divested of the choice by the Doctor, who happened to step out at that exact moment, as if he had planned for it. His eyes widened surprised, followed by his lips twitching into an adventurous smile.

"Aha! Perfect!" he announced, clapping his hands together. "Just who I was looking for." The smile, though, vanished abruptly and he coughed a little. "Sorry, it's actually not that much of a good news."

"What's wrong?" Roka asked and followed inside.

"Uh, well... how to put it." He clasped his hands behind his back, rocking on his heels, then straightening his bowtie. "I went back to your parents' house to check on a certain signal. Didn't find out anything new about it, but, eh, something else instead..."

Behind him the Master appeared in the console room, threw a quick glance at the two and stood still as if to contemplate if he should leave again. His eyes met with Roka's and she noted surprised and confused how he hastily looked away. Her heart did a weird little drop at that, making her completely oblivious to what the Doctor told her.

"....so, there's that," he blabbered on, unaware of the situation.

Roka slightly shook her head and glanced back at him, apologetically muttering, "Uh, sorry. Could you tell again? Was a bit absent."