They were all gathered now, the shuttle was already beginning to rise, and they now had what looked like a Veratech employee with them—he had the logo printed across his worm-out uniform, after all, so it seemed safe to assume that he worked there—thus the Doctor took a moment from his brow raising at the foul-mouthed Sarah (”Because I would very much like to point out that the vast majority of us are not in the process of ‘fucking’, and therefore it would be highly inaccurate to address us as ‘fuckers’, mind…”) to wave them onboard with a friendly hand and smile. Said smile only grew when he noticed that the one escorting the worker happened to be Kaylee. But for the meantime the Doctor concentrated on answering what questions he could, holding off on proper greetings until they were safely on the move.

First dibs went to John. “—Er, I’m afraid not,” he replied cheerfully with a nervous grin, “Completely blind!”

He opened his mouth to continue, but instead decided that this was already becoming awkward and didn’t need any further provocation on his part. The Doctor abruptly turned to Rose.

…And was momentarily thrown off by her question, because he hadn’t thought about that until just now. His emphatic smile remained but became considerably forced and, therefore, worried. “—Hmm? Oh, I highly doubt it. From what I saw this shuttle’s only remaining functions are levitating and going forwards.”

The Doctor loosed a nervous chuckle and bit his lip.