Work Text:
All her textbooks were packed efficiently in long boxes, with pencils, notepads and the rare desk knickknack left to fill the patterned empty space above the spines. She had tested the weight and strength of each box and, finding it only slightly taxing to stack them in the corridor, decided that it was an adequate load for the contractors to handle without problems. The delicate equipment had gone over on the first lorries last week. After a short and completely unnecessary fight with the Dean, her filing cabinet had been carefully shipped in its entirety. The desk and chair may have been relics as old as Cavendish Laboratory itself. They were staying here; the new ones would be delivered to West Cambridge on the following afternoon. There was nothing left to do.
With a soft 'click', Liz Shaw closed her office door for the last time, and made her way out into the meandering streets.
People milled everywhere, coordinating all of the leftover bits that kept the laboratory running. The lorries had hardly enough space to park in front of the main entrance; they occupied all of the slate sidewalk and most of the lane beside it. Brick and stone surrounded everything, rising up from the road on both sides in an uninterrupted maze. The whole of Free School Lane had been closed to cars for days, and even so, there was barely room for a pedestrian to get by.
Thus a blue police box, nestled unnaturally (and on second glance, quite impossibly) in the alcove of a 300-year-old adorned doorway, was the last thing Liz expected to see on her walk home. Once she caught sight of it, the presence of the tall, white-haired gentleman beside it was admittedly less surprising.
"Doctor!" Liz said, stopping up and straightening. Her back twinged with the memory of moving books. "What brings you to Cambridge? How ever did you get your TARDIS past the lane closures?"
"A single answer suffices." He was dressed as always in frill and velvet, but the stiffness she'd often seen set upon his frame was gone. He was lounging casually against the TARDIS, smiling like a schoolboy, and stood up to give the weathered wood a loving pat. "As it happens, my exile has been rescinded."
Liz smirked in spite of herself. "Oh, it has?"
Her skepticism didn't dim the warmth in his eyes. "I've been testing her out with short hops. I trust it's still June, nineteen seventy-three?"
"Seventy-four."
"Hmm, must have another look at the helmic regulators. Some other time, though. I'm glad I still caught you at Cambridge, see--" Liz must have frowned because he paused, concern blossoming in his face. "Oh dear, is something wrong? You are still at Cambridge?"
"Of course I am," Liz said, staring up at the flat stone wall. "In fact, we're just finishing our move to our brand new, state of the art facilities."
"That's wonderful news, Liz," said the Doctor. "I'm very pleased to hear it. Your work certainly merits the reward, for this day and age."
"Yes. Well." Liz clutched her handbag. "No more cramped classrooms and closet-sized offices."
"Splendid. Space and freedom, for both of us! That calls for a celebration." The Doctor sauntered out into the lane beside her, his hawkish chin upturned as he studied the windows. This was the Rayleigh wing, named for its Nobel winning benefactor in 1908, when it was completed. Thompson had discovered isotopes behind those walls. It housed the cloud chamber. The spectrograph. It had birthed X-rays, the discovery of the neutron, and Watson and Crick's double helix.
And it was the middle of the street, and they hadn't spoken in years and all she'd been was a pretty face to pass him test tubes. But for better or worse, Liz couldn't help speaking her mind to him.
"I know I'm not really giving anything up," she said, standing shoulder to shoulder. "The new building is better in all the ways that count. But . . . don't call me sentimental Doctor, but I'll miss my old chair. My old dusty window. I feel I owe Cavendish Laboratory a drink and a toast at the pub."
"Indeed." All that knowledge hiding behind those eyes, and he simply smiled at her. Then he took her hand, and escorted her toward the weathered blue box with a gesture. "I thought we might try somewhere a bit farther afield."