She's Doctor Brilliant!

Ep. 1 Pt. 5: Roadtrip

A luminous line moves in the pitch black.

Move closer.

The line is thicker now, a smooth, snaking surface, made of shorter lines linked together. The light radiates in dashes and dots along the sides, blazing out in whites and blues on the dark, textured earth. There's a rhythmic rumbling noise, an orchestra of metallic slapping, gears grinding, and the crescendo of a human crowd.

Move closer. Angle into a glass window. Be blinded by the fluorescent lights.

There are people here. They sit and chat with each other. Some have headphones on and want to ignore the ones around them. Some sit close and speak low. Some laugh. 

They feel safe. They feel light. They feel glad not to be left in the dark gloom they see out of the windows.

A man sitting with his wife says something to her. She flirts with him, smiling wide. He blushes and looks away. Graham O'Brien often feels like he doesn't deserve her. He is glad to be there, with her.

At the very back of the carriage sits a figure, alone. No other passenger has noticed it. They walk around its seat when they pass. 

It waits. It knows... 

It knows that no one is safe.

*

"We may have a problem."

The Doctor was looking at the laptop screen happily, typing something in, zapping it with her sonic occasionally.

Ryan cleared his throat.

"I said, Doctor, we may have a problem."

"Hmm?" She looked at him, not seeing him. Then she blinked, noticing his expression. "What's on your mind, Ryan?"

He pointed at the screen wordlessly. He shook his finger vigorously at it. The Doctor gazed, rapt, as he spoke.

The next second she was bounding out the door.

*

"Whoa! Sorry, sorry, have I hurt you?"

Yaz hissed an angry breath, holding her smarting forehead in her palm. "Yes! Ouch... Where's the fire?"

The blonde woman stood panicky yet still as another person moved into focus.

"Yaz? You actually came?"

It was Ryan. In spite of herself, Yaz smiled. She had felt horrible for her suspicions earlier and had come to make herself useful to him.

She dropped her hand.

"Of course I came. You're my friend, and I shouldn't have doubted you. What's more," she held out a file, "I smuggled out copies of the case you mentioned."

"Oh, yes! That's brilliant!" said the blonde, taking the file away and reading it greedily.

Yaz stared at Ryan, who seemed to realise something.

"Oh, right. Yaz, this is the Doctor. She's... Not from around here. Doctor, this is Yasmin Khan."

"– The one person you call when you need help? Yeah, I gathered. Excellent work, officer! Pleased to meet you."

Yaz shook her hand, feeling like something was strange about the introduction Ryan had offered up. She didn't sound foreign to her...

"However," the Doctor began, growing frown lines, "we are in a hurry to be somewhere so unless you have a great idea on how to catch a train in twenty minutes or less–"