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"-And bring in some extra plates Leelah dear, there's a good girl." The distinct sound of his mother's middle-class-pretending-to-be-upper-class-pretending-to-be-middle-class-so-as-not-to-be-gauche-but-wants-you-to-know-she's-upper-class-and-Better-Than-You voice rings through the empty kitchen before getting cut off as the door swings closed.
Only, it isn't empty.
"You- You can't be here." He says shakily, feeling his stomach slide into his socks. His dainty white frilly fucking socks.
The Doctor looks down at herself for a moment, as if testing his theory.
"Yeah, I can." She replies. Or at least, that's what he thinks she replies. It's hard to tell with her fingers in her mouth like that. Not taking her eyes off him, she sucks noisily at them and sticks them back in the jar of honey she has apparently decided is an acceptable hors-d'oeuvre. It's not sexy, even if his interests did run to thousand year old aliens with boundary issues.
"I- I'm not- You-" He stammers badly, the prickly embarrassment tightening around his ribcage, like the lace already ensnaring him.
"Excellent vintage." The Doctor says, ignoring him and capping the jar of honey. She at least has the decency to wash her hands, he thinks, brain narrowing to a single thought process as the anxiety reaches critical mass. The jar's all sticky now. And full of alien saliva germs. He's going to have to buy more before his Mum fancies some on toast again.
"Lee-laaah!" His Mum's voice sings loudly, slightly tipsy now too. On second thought, to hell with her.
"Can I have a codename too? I'm thinking Something Smith. Why don't you pick for me, Lee?"
"Codename?" He asks weakly. The tingly feeling has migrated to his hands which are painful and cold. His Mum wants him to bring in plates but he's not sure he could competently carry so much as a towel right now.
"I'm not feeling a John, and Joan's so," The Doctor pulls a face and waves her hand. A bit of water splashes him in the face. "Smith, Smith, Smith... Sar- no definitely not... Sheridan? No. Lucie? No... Maybe we should start with the first letter and work our way up?"
"Plates." Lee mumbles. He can't do anything. Can't think. The Doctor requires him to be at the top of his game at the best of times, she might as well be speaking in circles.
"Plates Smith? Well, it's- Oh, the plates." She opens the cupboard by his head and pulls down a stack, placing them on the counter. They're not the nice ones that his Mum'll want, but he can't find the energy to say so.
"Come on Lee, you're the better half of this outfit." She prompts him, clapping him firmly on the shoulder, then reaching back for her honey again.
Outfit. Oh God. She's seeing him like this. A gurgling sound escapes his mouth when he opens it, and he swiftly shuts it, along with his eyes.
"Lee?" The Doctor whispers. She's silent for a moment. "Lee, you know it's ok, right?" She says quietly, like they're actors mid-performance, trying to work out where the scene has gone wrong without alerting the audience.
He tries again, but an awful high-pitched noise escapes him. His lip starts to tremble and he bites it, hating, hating, what he must look like right now.
"I know you. You don't think them putting a dress on you is going to change that, do you?" A slightly damp and sticky hand finds his, and rubs some life back into his fingers. "You're my philosopher-in-action, my go-to-guy, my friend. I know you."
They drift into silence again. Lee slowly opens one eye, then the other. The Doctor's facing away, looking somewhere out of the window, but hasn't let go of his hand. She's idly sucking on one of her free fingers.
"Winnie," Lee says, tone still shaky but a little stronger. He moves to massage his other hand, letting hers fall away. "Codename. Like the bear."
"I'm not lost for I know where I am. But however, where I am may be lost.” The Doctor recites. She hovers above the honey, seeming to weigh up the benefits of right hand versus left and - in the interests of scientific inquiry, perhaps - sticks a forefinger of each into the jar.
"How did you even get in here? Where is the TARDIS?" Lee asks, flexing and making his knuckles click.
The Doctor looks almost guilty for a moment, fingers still stuck in her mouth as if she's about to whistle. Automatically, his eyes dart to the window, which still appears to be in one piece, and he gives a sigh of relief. Instead, she kicks one of the bottom cupboard doors, causing it to bounce open.
"Oi, I don't go around kicking the...TARDIS..." He trails off, staring into the cupboard. "How in blue blazes did you get her in there?"
Lee bends down to get a closer look, and the Doctor squats close behind him. She smells as sweet as she isn't.
"I was rather hoping you'd know." She says, wiping her hands on her knees. "Not got any Dimensional Stabilisers in here that someone might have inverted for a joke, have you?"
"Wouldn't think so."
"No. Might need to do a sweep of the house..." The Doctor says, standing up.
"Not now!" He shouts, and immediately covers his mouth with his hands. The noise outside the kitchen quiets for a moment, then swells again. The Doctor looks half-ready to dive back into the TARDIS, and he loves her a little for it.
"I, uh, better get back," The bad prickles start all over his body again, but now more at the worry they'll notice something 'wrong' about him. More than they usually do. It's not easy leaving someone who gets him for a world that doesn't. He gathers up the plates with a clatter, and takes a few deep breaths to steady himself. "They'll all drift off in an hour or two, if you've got nowhere else to be. Doubt she'll be up to cleaning, so your secret's safe." He says, with a nod to the TARDIS.
"LeeheeLAH sweetie, where are you?!" His mother's voice sings. Lee doesn't flinch - too used to it to flinch - but he suddenly can't look the Doctor in the eyes.
"I'm not Leelah." He says firmly. She knows, but he needs to say it anyway.
"Trust me, I wouldn't get the two of you mixed up." The Doctor says with a snort. He has no idea what she means by that, but he rarely has any idea what she means by anything. She's smiling that nose wrinkling smile though, so it's ok.
Lee tries to open the door while keeping the plates balanced, and as he gets it off latch, the party noise rising to meet him, he says quietly over his shoulder, "You can keep the honey." It's not what he's really saying.
"I will join you at your reconnaissance post at oh-two-hundred hours." The Doctor replies indistinctly through her fingers.
With his luck, he'll probably crash out and wake to her sat on the foot of his bed, eating his secret chocolate stash after searching his room for alien tech and rewiring his alarm clock. He'll find she's made a scanner out of it, his laptop, and the remains of this damn dress and is ready to pull the whole house apart because she accidentally parked in a cupboard.
Lee takes a last look as he pulls the door shut. The Doctor's tucking into her jar again, sat on the floor and mumbling at the TARDIS while vaguely waving her screwdriver.
At least he hopes he will.