The Doctor looked satisfied as he tapped the screen on the TARDIS console.
     "Radiation levels normal, good...good," he muttered, a sudden frown creasing his forehead. The old man stroked his chin.
     "Doctor?" Barbara piped up.
     "Yes, what is it, what d'you want?"
     "You seemed lost, grandfather," Susan said. The Doctor looked up at the wall seeing no one in particular and nodded slowly.
     "Yes, my child... I ought to tell you what I was thinking. I was thinking that perhaps our 'friends' here might be leaving us," he said vaguely. Ian stood straight, his eyes wide. He knew what this could possibly mean. The last time the Doctor had said something like this he had threatened to kick them off the ship mid-flight.
      "Now, now Chemberton-"
      "Chesterton," Ian Chesterton corrected.
     "Don't be so defensive," the Doctor said, "I mean to say that the readings are earth like. Now whether the period in time is at all close is another matter entirely."
     "A year or so doesn't bother me at all Doctor, " Ian said bluntly. The Doctor grinned at this, raised an arm toward the door and looked right at Ian. 
     "Be my guest then, my boy," he said, and with his other hand pressed a switch on the console. The doors opened and a dim space met the four of them. Ian and Barbara shared a nervous, half excited glance and almost tip toed forward. It was indeed earth...London. Dust drifted in the light shining through the blinds as Ian gazed over the desks in his class. They had materialised in Coal Hill School.
     It had to be a joke. The Doctor had almost bragged about the Ship having different ideas about ‘their travels’ and where to take them. Given their track record, Ian had given up hope of ever returning to England, let alone Coal Hill School. The last couple of times, the Doctor had given up feeding the TARDIS console any intricate coordinates or instruction, and so Ian expected their destinations to be a complete surprise.
     “I can’t believe it!” Barbara gasped.
     “You’re telling me,” he looked at her and smiled.
     “Alright, alright now,” the Doctor sighed, growing impatient. “I suppose this is close enough, eh?”
     The crew looked at the old man smiling mischievously. They couldn’t help but look past his faults, his short temper or his seemingly cold nature when he smiled like this. Charm was like a light he turned on and off.
     “Thank you, Doctor. You don’t know how much it means to us,” Ian said cheerfully.
     “Hush, don’t thank me just yet.”
     “Why’s that?”
     “Dear boy, keep up. This,” he said, extending an arm, “is a space and time ship. We may be on earth, but who’s to say it is 1963?”
     “Come on, Doctor, just look. Not much has changed. It’s probably just a Saturday. We’re actually lucky…imagine appearing suddenly in a class full of children.”
     “Heh,” the Doctor chuckled. His white hair shook as he laughed. “I can, though I choose not to imagine. Shocking!”
     “Grandfather, why did you bring us to the school. It could reveal everything about us, appearing so suddenly. You said that was why we had to leave. You couldn’t have Mr Chesterton and Ms Wright know too much about us once they found the TARDIS, remember? Why change?” Susan said, befuddled.
     “Ah, I didn’t say I brought us here. I was aiming for earth. The Ship did the rest.” The Doctor turned away and looked up at the blue box. He laid a hand on the door affectionately, felt its warmth and smiled.
     Ian coughed: “Well, er…Doctor. You’ve shown me around your world, I only see it as fitting that I show you around mine.”
     The Doctor turned around and nodded, agreeing to it. Ian lead the Doctor out the door and into the corridor. The rest followed.
     Ian fished his keys out of his pocket and tried to turn the lock on the door leading into the staff room only to discover that the lock had been changed.
     “Funny thing…” he muttered.
     Strolling out through the fire exit they were greeted with a brilliant blue sky. The morning was crisp. It could very well have been the same autumn day that Ian and Barbara were abducted by the man that they had then thought was called Doctor Foreman. So much had happened since that day.
     The bulletin board in the school parking lot told them a different story altogether. It definitely was not the same autumn day that they had left. It was autumn of course… but an autumn of some fifty odd years removed from the days of their employment at Coal Hill. However, the school paper pinned to the board read May 2018. Ian had to sit down. He crouched pathetically instead, hands ruffling up his neat hair.
     “It’ll be fine Ian, it’s just another setback is all,” Barbara said calmly.
     “Come now, my boy. We could lock the ship. Lock it spatially, you see. The way I see it, we’re halfway there! We could give it another attempt for your sake and end up in ‘63.”
     “That doesn’t sound too bad Doctor,” Ian said.
     “Where’s Susan?” Barbara asked. The three looked around and found her by a playground where the groundskeepers shed had been in ’63. Susan stood over a small figure. Evidently it wasn’t a Saturday if some girl was playing…in shorts and a T-shirt also!
     “Come now, Susan, don’t scare the girl.”
     “Grandfather, take a look at this,” Susan said suddenly.
     The Doctor saw that the girl was completely still from head to toe, as if turned to stone. A goofy expression was plastered on her face. Perhaps she was caught mid sneeze.
     “Oh my goodness!” Ian exclaimed. He took off his jacket and put it around the girls’ shoulders. The science teacher waved a hand in front of her face to no avail.
     “Doctor isn’t there something you can do?” he cried.
     “I’m looking, aren’t I?”
     “I know, but for being from an ‘advanced civilisation’ surely there could be something you could use or whip out and help. By god, you have the TARDIS after all,” Ian sputtered.
     “I didn’t make the ship, and besides, how is that to help the girl, hm?” he said, stroking the lapels of his jacket with a small frown on his face.
     “I thought the TARDIS belonged in the realm of science fiction up until a few weeks ago, Doctor. To me, that is proof that you can revive the girl in some way. The impossible has already happened enough to change my mind.”
     “Well, how would you have me do it, eh?”
     “Well first we would need a diagnosis. We have machines on earth that can scan the insides of bodies, to put it as simply as possible. Surely the TARDIS has a feature such as that, or even a device would be helpful.”
     “You would have me let technology do everything? The day I sit back and wave a wand at my problems is the day I hand over the keys of the ship to Susan. Besides, I know everything I need to know about the girl just by looking at her,” the doctor said, stroking his lapels with a smug smile on his face.
     “Well I would have said time was frozen or something,” Ian said.
     “Ridiculous,” the Doctor laughed. “Can’t you hear the wind? The leaves skittering across the pavement? No…the people are frozen.”
     “People? We have only seen this girl.”
     “Come now, it has to be more than this girl. If she were here frozen in a public place for a matter of a few months, wouldn’t someone search for her? She is not exactly in the wilderness, she would be seen within hours. No, it has to be more than just her, perhaps everyone,” the Doctor said, almost to himself.
     “Few months?” Barbara asked this time.
     “Do you not see how the child is dressed? For summer, no doubt. Perhaps you would say it is neglectful parenting, though I see the mud up to her knees due to the rain and changing weather. Also the look of her hair, and I say it is at least a month or two. At least.”
     “Very clever Doctor,” Ian said, taking his hand away from her wrist. “But how do you suppose she still has a pulse?”
     “Ah…that I am unsure of. Perhaps something is keeping her alive, and by extension everyone else. In the future, even your civilisation manages to master the science of cryogenically freezing life. Inside a controlled environment such as a ship, of course… on long journeys so that their crew may not age or need to eat whilst ‘asleep.’ Maybe this is along those lines.”
     “In any case I don’t like the look of it,” Barbara said.
     “Me either, Ms Wright!” The Doctor said and turned around suddenly.
     “Are you not going to help this girl?!”
     “I need more information! Again, what would you have me do? Come now, she can last another hour or so,” the Doctor trailed off. Susan looked at the two teachers and shrugged her shoulders as if to say “that’s just grandfather, don’t take it too personally.”
     They all followed him back out into the parking lot and through the front gate where they were met with something which probably shouldn’t have surprised them but did anyway. The street was full of them. People just like the girl stood still as soft statues, all of them paused mid step. People commuting to work… a postman and his bag of papers, all soggy and impossible to read at this stage.
     Ian found his breath again and muttered: “It is everyone. You were right, Doctor. As always…”

End of scene