[my numerous fish-documents]

The loud scraping sound ended with a sonorous clang! and Mary's proximity alert shut off abruptly. For a few seconds there was silence, broken only by Grace's shallow, shaky breaths and Rocky's pained trills.

Grace peeked over the top of the bench. He caught a glimpse of a large, blue box before a door on it opened and he ducked back down again.

'You recognise any of this, Rocky? Tell me this is something Eridian, please,' he whispered.

[Not Eridian. Not Earth?]

'Yeah. No. Definitely not Earth.'

'Hello?' A third voice rang out across the room and both of them froze. The voice was chipper, male and… English? 'Love the sneaky-sneaky thing you've got going on but I'm afraid–' he drew out the last word. 'I can see your hair.'

'Shoot,' Grace breathed. 'I'll distract it. Him. Whatever. And you just. You get back to the Blip-A, okay?'

Rocky shook his carapace fervently.

[Bad bad bad. No–]

But Grace was already moving; he took a deep breath and raised himself above the lab bench.

'There you are! 'Ello!' The man hailed cheerily.

It - he - was another human; tall and gangling, in a pinstriped suit and trench coat, with artfully-tousled hair. He waved at Grace. Grace - against his better judgement - waved back.

'Lovely place you've got here,' the man grinned at him. 'Love all the… string. Very stringy,' he gestured expansively at the bungee cords. 'Ooh, science! I love a laboratory. Mind if I just–'

He took one step towards a microscope, jerked to a stop and frowned at the ground as if it had offended him.

'That's weird.'

He bounced on the balls of his feet.

'That's really weird.'

He pulled a flat wallet out of an inside pocket and let it go; watching as it dropped to the ground.

'We're in a centrifuge,' he stated. 'This lab is one big centrifuge,' he turned his attention fully on Grace. 'Why is this lab a centrifuge?'

Grace unstuck his throat. He felt Rocky's xenonite ball nudge up against his leg.

'W- we're. Um. I-it's because this isn't a lab. Not really. It's a spaceship.'

'A spaceship?' the man frowned. 'Why would a spaceship be a centrifu–' he cut himself off suddenly.

He stared at Grace, hard, as if seeing him properly for the first time. Then his eyes widened and a huge grin split his features.

'Is this…? Oh, please! Red jumpsuit!' he pointed at Grace's legs.

'Xenonite tubing!' he pointed at that too. Then, he rushed over to the nearest microscope and - to Grace's horror - dipped a finger into the black goop on the slide and tasted it.

'Taumoeba!' he exclaimed in delight.

'This is the Hail Mary. I'm on the Hail Mary!'

He let out a whoop of joy and bounced across the room until he was leaning bodily across the bench separating him and Grace.

'And you. Hah! You must Dr Ryland Grace!'

'Er. Y-yeah. I's him. He'm me. I–' Grace shook himself. 'Yes. I'm Dr Ryland Grace a-and this is–'

'Rocky the Eridian!' he burst out and launched himself across the bench to peer down at Rocky. He let out a series of complicated whistles which Rocky copied.

[Is traditional Eridian greeting. How…?]

'You can speak Eridian?'

'Hm? Yep. Can speak everything, me. 'Cos I'm clever,' he said dismissively. 'I'm The Doctor, by the way, and you are Ryland Grace!'

The Doctor beamed, like meeting Grace had made his entire week. It was a bit overwhelming. Grace stumbled back a couple of steps and placed a hand on Rocky's ball.

'H-how did you get here? Are you from Earth? No, technology can't have jumped forward that far. Wh-what…?'

'Oh, it's not important! Honestly, it's boring. That's my ship,' he jerked a thumb towards the wooden, blue box in the corner of the room. 'And I'm not actually human. Normally, that's a bit of a shock to people but you're used to extraterrestrials! You're the Ryland Grace. First Contact is your whole thing! That and saving– wait,' he cut himself off. 'Where are we? What have you done? You've done the whole Taumoeba whatsit. Where are you going?'

Grace blinked and fumbled a little.

'Erm…'

[Grace and Rocky go to Erid.]

'Oh, you're on the way home!' The Doctor practically squealed with happiness.

He finally rounded the lab bench and stood almost toe-to-toe with Grace.

'Dr Captain Ryland Grace. Saviour of two - two! - civilisations. Humanity's first interstellar astronaut, First Contact and first Terran immigrant,' The Doctor smiled at him with such pride that Grace felt himself tear up. 'You do so much. You are so important to so many. And you are so brave.'

A sob choked its way out of Grace at that.

[Agree agree agree! Grace save Earth! Save Erid!]

'Ah! He said the thing!' The Doctor cried gleefully. 'I'd always hoped I'd meet you two. What a pair! Two lonely astronauts - both their species' last hopes - working together to save the stars! You're lucky,' he addressed this to Rocky. 'I have a human best friend, too. They're just brilliant, aren't they?'

[Also grumpy, stupid, brave.]

'Hah! Yeah. Mine's all that too,' he said wistfully.

'Wait. Wait. What did you–' Grace started but another loud clang! sounded from The Doctor's… machine.

'Yeah, yeah!' he called behind him. 'That's my cue, I'm afraid.'

'You're going?'

'Well, I can't hang around here, all day, can I?' The Doctor said, already striding across the lab again. 'Can't get in the way of all of this. How long until you get to the 40 Eridani system?'

'Er…' Grace tapped on his laptop. 'two years, ten months and three days.'

'Not long to go now! Well…' he drew out the word. ' Relatively speaking, anyway. Stratt follows through, by the way. On the statue thing. There are hundreds of them. 'Grace Rocky Save Stars' under each one. The best one is outside your old school - it's the only one where they get your hair right and they have you and Rocky holding hands. Right! Must be off! Places to be!'

'How're you gonna–'

'Don't worry about that! The old girl takes care of it,' The Doctor patted the side of the box cheerfully. 'Dr Ryland Grace,' he said again. 'Amazing. Oh! One last thing! I've always wanted to do this.'

He took a step towards Rocky and pressed his hand, balled into a fist, against the xenonite partition.

'Fist my bump?' he asked and laughed excitedly when Rocky obliged him. 'Brilliant! OK, you two. Take care of each other. Don't forget to tell the Eridians about the importance of UV radiation - they forget to put it in the artificial Sun at first and you get a bit of the old Vitamin D deficiency. Not fun!'

The Doctor backed his way into the box. Grace caught sight of an interior that looked far bigger than it should be.

'Goodbye, Grace. Goodbye, Rocky. Good luck on Erid!'

And, with that, the door clicked shut. The horrible whirring, screeching noise filled the room again. A wild wind whipped up and caused Grace to shut his eyes against it. When he reopened them, the box was gone.

He and Rocky stood in silence for a moment.

'Hey, buddy?'

[Yes, Grace, question?]