‘Your granddad will.’

‘Yeah? Good, take him out for a pint tonight in the Shepherd’s Hut, but to start with I want to see them on my own.’ Donna was still holding his hand, and she squeezed it gently. ‘You understand, don’t you?’

He smiled. ‘Course I do. Wasn’t thinking. Sorry.’

‘Let’s not start that up again, yeah?’ Donna let go of his hand. ‘I’m gonna get some flowers and walk home. Why don’t I meet you back here, this time, tomorrow?’

‘Here. Tomorrow. Sold.’ The Doctor winked at her and started walking off. ‘Nice flower shop on the corner thataway,’ he called out. ‘Ask for Loretta and say I sent you.’

He turned a corner and was gone.

Donna took a breath and walked in the direction he’d pointed.

A year ago. Today.

Adipose. Pyroviles. Oods with brains in their hands.

Even Sontaran probic vents, Hath and talking skeletons all seemed simple in comparison to what was going to happen this afternoon.

Because this afternoon Donna had to go back and be there for her mum and probably relive not just last year, but the days and weeks that had followed, funerals, telling people, memorials, notices in papers, sorting out the

financial side of things, finding the will… None of it had been easy on Donna’s mum. Hadn’t been that easy on Donna, truth be told, and a year ago that would have been her overriding thought. Donna Noble, putting herself first.

But not now – just a short time with the Doctor had shown her that she wasn’t the woman she had been then.

And Granddad, poor Granddad, bringing back memories of Nan’s passing, he’d bravely soldiered on for everyone else’s sake, trying to sort out solicitors and funeral directors and suchlike.

Not that Mum had been weak or feeble – Sylvia Noble wasn’t like that, and they’d been prepared for Dad’s death, well, as much as you can be, but it still haunted her. She could see it in her mum’s eyes, it was like someone had cut an arm and a leg off, and Mum just coped as best she could. Thirty-eight years they’d been married.

Donna sighed. ‘Miss you, Dad,’ she said out loud as she came to a halt outside a laundrette called Loretta’s.

Her phone buzzed with a text message, and she read it.

UMMM. ACTUALLY MIGHT BE WRONG.

LORETTA’S MIGHT NOT BE FLORIST. SORRY.

How did he do that? He didn’t even have a mobile as far as Donna knew. That sonic screwdriver perhaps? Was there nothing it couldn’t do?

Shoving the phone back into her coat pocket, Donna decided she’d be better off heading towards Turnham Green. She knew there was a florist there.

Men. Alien men. Useless, the lot of them.

Lukas Carnes hated technology. Which made him a bit weird, according to all his mates. His mum had a PC, but

Lukas avoided using it if possible, other than to type up school essays once he’d done them in longhand. He had an MP3 player which his younger brother (who was eight) had to actually put music onto for him. And don’t even get him started on the problems associated with using a DVD-R.

He was, he’d decided on his fifteenth birthday, a throwback to an earlier time, when technically savvy guys were called geeks and girls ran a mile from them. Sadly for Lukas, most girls he knew wanted a bloke who could download music at twenty paces and unlock a mobile that had come from a dodgy stall in Shepherds Bush Market.

So Lukas didn’t have a girlfriend.

Which just added fuel to his passionate loathing for tech. He accepted that he needed it, he just didn’t want to understand it. His brain wasn’t wired to understand MP3

compressions and 3G and GPS tracking systems. He just wanted to press an ON button and have it all work. Wasn’t that what his mum’s age group had gone through all that First/Second/Third Generation stuff for? So that he could press buttons and things worked without being out of date in six months and redundant in twelve. On TV they talked about the days when you could click your fingers and doors would open, when you could walk into a room and say ‘lights’ and a computer would turn everything on, just to the right level.

God. He was his grandmother! Next thing, he’d be saying he couldn’t understand pop music and what sex was that person on Popworld?

Fifteen, not fifty, Lukas.

So why was he standing in the local branch of Discount Electronics, watching a demonstration of the newest Fourth Generation Processor on some laptop thinner than a piece of cardboard?

Because his brother, his 8-year-old, technically savvy, brother Joe had asked him. Well, strictly speaking, Mum had asked him. With Joe’s dad gone, just like Lukas’s before him, the older boy had become de facto father to his little brother. Which suited Lukas, cos secretly he adored Joe, not that he’d ever tell him that. And cos little brothers needed to know who was boss, and Lukas’s power would be lost at the first sign of weakness.

And Joe had acted up really badly after his dad went, getting into trouble at school and on the estate, and Mum had been visited by the police twice.

So Lukas had taken Joe aside and explained as best he could to an 8-year-old that it wasn’t Mum’s fault his dad had gone, nor was it Joe’s, and messing about with the older kids, helping them nick cars and stuff wasn’t helping Mum.

After a few months, Joe had calmed down. But now he hung on to Lukas at all times, and kicked off if his big brother didn’t take him everywhere. Lukas had even started taking Joe to junior school before heading off to Park Vale High. Which Mum appreciated no end, so that was good.

But occasionally, Lukas wanted to kick off by himself, be alone, not be the responsible one.

Today was a day like that, but here he was with Joe, watching this new demo along with thirty other people, all

tucked into a shop that probably safely took ten people at most. God help them if there was a fire.

A large (in every direction) woman moved in front of them, so Lukas hoisted Joe up into his arms so he could see better. This meant Lukas could see nothing. So while Joe (how heavy was he getting?) watched intently, Lukas’s gaze drifted round the shop.

A skinny guy in a blue suit was tapping away at a demonstration laptop that was probably going to be out of date by the end of today. The guy was searching for something on the internet – Lukas could see repeated screens showing a search engine (ooh, technical term!) –and frowning. He clearly wasn’t getting the results he wanted.

The man reached into his pocket and took out a shiny tube, like a marker pen, and pointed it at the screen. At first, Lukas thought he was going to write on the laptop’s screen but instead the end of the pen glowed blue, and Lukas watched in amazement as the images on the screen downloaded and changed at a phenomenal rate. No, an impossible rate. The blue-suited man took a pair of thick black glasses out of another pocket and put them on as he stared intently at the changing screens. Surely he couldn’t read that fast?

He became aware that Lukas was watching him and smiled, almost sheepishly. The shiny pen went back into a pocket, the glasses into another.

Lukas realised his mouth was open, so he snapped it shut.

Blue Suit Guy winked at Lukas and was about to leave

the shop, when he reached forward and picked up a leaflet about the demonstration Lukas’s little brother was watching. And then he looked at the crowd and wandered over.

Lukas quickly switched his attention back to the demo.

Or at least to the back of Fat Lady’s head.

After a few minutes of listening to some blonde droning on about how revolutionary the new computer system was, Blue Suit Guy shrugged and muttered about ‘impossible’ and ‘not on this planet’ and ‘contradicting the Shadow Proclamation’s Eighteenth Protocol’, at which point Lukas decided that, shiny penthing or not, this guy was probably a nutter. Maybe he should get Joe away from him, just in case the guy had a knife.