"-and he looked at me like I was completely insane, and I was like 'Yeah. And it was totally bigger on the inside.' and the look he gave me-" Clyde almost teared up with laughter. "-completely priceless!"

The three friends shared a laugh.

"Sure," Rani added as soon as she regained her composure. "Aliens and spaceships. Who believes that?"

"Yeah," Luke laughed. "Complete science fiction."

"You think this is hilarious?" Clyde asked. "I met a girl once who believed there were aliens all around us!"

Luke glanced round, suddenly nervous, but his friends didn't seem to notice the change in his demeanour.

"And what did you tell her?" Rani inquired with a laugh.

"Oh, nothing particularly incriminating, just a bit about-"

"Look," Luke interrupted him hastily. "It was great and all, but I gotta go."

Without waiting for a goodbye, he ran off in a side alley.

Rani and Clyde stood motionless in place for a long moment. Neither of them said a word, not sure how to react.

"Is it me or has Luke been acting sort of... weird lately?" Rani finally asked, adjusting the school bag on her shoulder.

"Yeah, he's been sneaking away a lot, never told where to." Clyde narrowed his eyebrows. "Think we should...?"

"Don't be stupid, Clyde. Remember what happened last time, when we followed Sarah Jane after she did something like that?"

"And it turned out she was just going on a date, yeah," the boy admitted. Then, his eyes sparkled as another thought came to his mind. "You think Luke is seeing someone?"

Rani shrugged.

"Maybe."

Apparently satisfied with that explanation, the two continued their walk home in the general direction of Bannerman Road. Then, as if the realisation had come to them at the exact same moment, they simultaneously stopped dead in their tracks.

"Wait." They shared terrified looks. "Luke with a girl?"

There was a meaningful silence which only made the words sink in deeper.

"Definitely aliens this time."

Two weeks earlier

It happened in a blink. Now everything was just like before the Doctor crashed the wedding, with one exception: the absence of the groom. Everyone present was murmuring among themselves.

"I'm sorry everyone," Sarah Jane's voice sounded strangely small, completely unlike her usual demeanour. "But I'm afraid the wedding is..." in the silence that fell as she said those words, the sound of her wedding bouquet hitting the floor seemed almost overpowering. "...cancelled."

She then proceeded to exit the room, not caring for the whispers of the people around her. No one noticed, but there were tears forcing their way out of her eyes.

Luke was looking around, trying to find a very particular face in the small crowd of wedding guests.

"Where's the Doctor?" He asked, but Rani could only shake her head and follow Sarah Jane.

Two weeks later

"And what?" Rani asked as Clyde sneaked round the corner.

"He's not here," came the answer. Rani wasn't sure if that was meant to be a joke or something, so she entered the same alley that first Luke, and now also Clyde, have disappeared in.

"How can he not be here?" She wondered aloud. "We have seen him walk in here and it's a blind alley!"

Glancing at Clyde, she noticed that he was as perplexed as herself.

"We should go tell Sarah Jane," he decided.

Rani nodded.

"Yeah."

Two weeks earlier

Luke stood several meters from his mum and the small crowd of people who tried to comfort her, watching it all from a safe distance. He knew he should be there for her especially now, but it just felt weird to just go there among all these strangers and act as though he had everything under control. Besides...

"She's going to be fine." The voice - the Doctor's voice - sounded so close to his ear, and echoed his thoughts so perfectly that he almost jumped in surprise. Instead, he only did his best not to look. "Sarah," the Doctor explained, apparently taking his silence for lack of understanding. "She'll be fine, in time."

"She needs you," Luke said, and as soon as the words left his mouth, he realised they might as well have been directed towards him.

"She doesn't need me," the Time Lord opposed. "She's got you lot."

"And you... You're just going to go?" For some reason he didn't understand, Luke felt what seemed like regret.

"That's the way I usually do it."

Luke turned to stare at him, and as they established eye contact for the first time, both of them felt a tiny tingle of fear of the other, mixed with a hint if respect.

"Mum isn't 'usually'!" Luke almost spat the words.

Luke somehow survived the killing look that he received, though it wasn't easy. The Doctor looked away.

"I'm going to pop in for a visit, probably," he said in a tone that suggested this was his way of giving in to something. "To say proper goodbyes and stuff. Today, I promise."

Two weeks later

"Sarah Jane!" Clyde screamed as he practically burst in through the front door, Rani following him a bit more hesitantly. "Sarah Jane, something weird is happening, Luke has vanished and-!"

He stopped as the person in question walked down the stairs with a history book in his hand.

"I'm here, Clyde," Luke said in a voice that suggested it should be obvious. Clyde couldn't help but notice that he's had the time to change from the school uniform.

Sarah Jane walked out of the kitchen, an apron tied around her waist.

"We've been wondering where have you been, actually." She said. "Luke's been waiting here for half an hour."

"Half an hour?" Rani repeated. "But that's not possible, we've only just seen Luke not more than ten minutes ago."

"You must be getting something wrong," Sarah Jane dismissed. "Luke has definitely been here the whole time. Besides, how would he have got here without you noticing in the first place?"

"Rani's right. It can't have been more than ten minutes. School's close, and we were at least halfway through the way."

"Well, I can't have been in two places at once," Luke reasoned. "Biexistence is scientifically impossible. I would need a time machine - at the very least."

Two weeks earlier

"D'you want a lift?" The Doctor pointed at the TARDIS. "Plenty of room inside."

Luke smiled at the somewhat crude attempt at a joke, and then shook his head.

"And have it ended in countless 'delays'? No way." He grinned. "I know how this works."

He set off in the general direction of the rest of the wedding guests, then, as if having remembered something important, he stopped at turned back to look at the Time Lord, who just stood there and watched him with an unsure expression.

"I hold you to your word!" Luke called to him, and then, silently wondering if he wasn't going too far, added "...Dad."

He turned back and ran down the hill, apparently a little afraid at the possible outcomes of his boldness. The Doctor stared after him with wide eyes, an expression of utter disbelief spreaded across his face. Then, he broke into a grin as he opened the TARDIS door and looked back before entering the ship.

"Oh, we'll definitely meet again, Luke Smith," he muttered with a smirk.

=oooOOO~OOOooo=

Rani watched with concern as Clyde continued to observe Luke with a pair of binoculars.

"He's off again," he announced as Luke walked down the street, looking around nervously. It did look somewhat suspicious, but Rani still thought Clyde was overreacting.

"Don't you think this is a bit of an exaggeration?" She asked, trying to sound reasonable. "After all, it is possible that he's just seeing a girl."

"Yeah. Very possible." Clyde rolled his eyes. "Just think about it, Rani. What if it really is aliens? They might be using his superbrain for something. Maybe they're blackmailing him so that he won't tell us. How would you know?"

Rani sighed. She had to admit Clyde had some kind of intuition when it came to these matters, but sometimes she thought he was being completely obsessive with conspiracy theories.

"Blackmailing him how?" She asked. "It's Luke we're talking about. I'm pretty sure he'd tell us if something was wrong."

This time, Clyde ignored her comments and instead focused on Luke, adjusting his binoculars to the increasing distance.

"Where is he even going? There's nothing there." He grabbed his backpack and shoved the binoculars inside. "Come on, we'll follow him."

He didn't wait for an answer, immediately jogging down the street in the general direction of where Luke had gone. Rani could only follow.

"He's heading for that old building," Clyde said, and Rani couldn't help but notice the excitement in his voice. He was taking all of this too much like some kind of a game. Didn't he even wonder about how they were possibly destroying their friend's private life? If there was something Luke wanted to keep a secret, they should respect it.

"School," she corrected him anyway.

"What?" Clyde was perplexed.

"That building," she explained. "Used to be a school. Me and Sarah Jane wrote about it like a week ago, old buildings that aren't used anymore. I doubt anyone has been inside for decades."

"Sounds cool." Clyde winced. "Since when does Luke do cool? I'm telling you, there's something suspicious about this whole thing."

"Maybe we should leave it?" Rani suggested, but he was already at the door.

"Open," he noticed.

They walked inside. The hall resembled the one in their school, only in a state of decay. Most of the windows were boarded up, so only a very little amount of light made its way inside.

"Amazing paintball site," Clyde mused as they looked around.

"Loads of dust, too." Rani coughed.

"Yeah, so we can see Luke's footprints in it," he said. Rani was convinced he was joking.

"Alright, be serious now."

"I am serious. Just look."

True enough, the layer of dust on the floor was so thick that the last person who went inside left a very visible trail.

"Do we follow it or what?"

"I think we should, just keep your guard up." Clyde adjusted his jacket nervously. "We can't possibly know what's going on. Might be Bane, or Daleks, or whatever monstrosity it is this time."

"Might be Luke and his girlfriend," Rani opposed quietly.

"His nonexistent girlfriend. You can't seriously believe this! Luke in a stable relationship? And even if it is so, why would he hide it from us?" He shook his head. "Never mind us, why would he hide it from Sarah Jane?"

"Maybe he's afraid that we won't understand," Rani said thoroughly.

Clyde didn't know how to answer that, so he looked away.

"C'mon." He began following Luke's footprints. Rani glanced around hesitantly, then followed him. They walked into one of the classrooms and suddenly the trail ended.

"Ha!" Clyde exclaimed as though he had won a prize in proving points. "Told you, teleportation. People don't disappear into thin air just like that."

Rani had to admit that this time, he was right.

"So what do we do now?" She asked. "Because the way I see it, Luke hasn't been kidnapped by aliens - he came here on his own." She thought about it for a minute. "What if it's nice aliens? You know, the rare kind that don't want to destroy the Earth. Imagine it like this: Luke makes friends with an alien, is afraid to tell us because he doesn't know how we are going to react-"

"So we should tell Sarah Jane."

"And what if she asks how do we know this? We can't tell her we've been stalking her son for the past few days!"

"Yeah, doesn't sound that good." Clyde had to admit.

"You know..." Rani hesitated. She joined her hands and closed her eyes for a moment. "Luke is our friend. Maybe we should just trust him."

"What do you mean?"

"Whatever is going on, he's keeping it a secret from us, but he's not exactly complaining, either. What I'm getting to is, maybe we should trust in his ability to judge the situation... If he thinks it's best not to tell us what's up, then maybe it is best not to tell us."

Clyde nodded slowly.

"So, working scenario: Luke's friends with some alien and keeps it a secret?"

"Yeah." Rani smiled. Then, she pouted angrily. "But you're not investigating it further!"

"Don't you worry." He patted her on the cheek. "I'm not about to destroy the little privacy he has with friends like us."

=oooOOO~OOOooo=

It has been two weeks since their agreement about Luke's secret life, and so far no one has mentioned it until the one sunny afternoon when Rani and Clyde were walking home from school and Clyde glanced into a smaller alley.

"Okay!" He gasped in shock, pressing himself against the nearest wall. "Okay! I'm leaving it!"

"What?" Rani looked at him with concern; he was acting rereally strange.

"Working scenario: Luke's friends with an alien of unknown intentions. Actual situation: Luke is friends with an alien, alright. But I really do doubt they're planning an invasion."

"What do you mean?"

Clyde simply grabbed her and dragged towards the alley he had just ran out of. Rani squinted her eyes.

"But that's..." She joined the facts quite easily, especially as Luke exited the police box standing in the corner of the yard.

Clyde quickly crouched, pulling her down with him. They hid behind a rose bush and watched. Luke stopped, turned around and said something that they couldn't hear. The Doctor poked his head out of the TARDIS, looked around and replied. Luke nodded, gave him a quick, awkward hug and ran off. Rani held her breath as he passed their hiding place, but he didn't notice them.

They waited until the sound of the TARDIS had faded completely before they dared to leave their bush. Clyde fought with rose petals sticking to his blouse.

"Well, I have got to admit... This isn't what I've been expecting." He summed up.

"Yeah..." Rani laughed. "We thought Luke was being blackmailed by hostile aliens."

"What is going on, though? Because from what I understand..." He scratched his head. "No, actually, I don't understand anything."

"Because you can't place yourself in Luke's situation. Isn't it obvious?"

"...No. Please explain."

"Luke isn't more than two years old," she reminded. "Everything is still new to him. He's trying to fit in, to be like a normal kid... Sarah Jane is good for him, but it's obvious he needs a father too."

"The time traveller and the Time Lord?" Clyde stiffened a laugh. "Blimey, talk about normal."

Rani made a face.

"This is probably as normal as it's ever going to get for him." She shook her head. "Luke isn't an ordinary kid. Don't expect him to seek ordinary parent figures in his life."

"Still..." Clyde narrowed his eyes. "You know, this actually makes sense." He laughed. "The time traveller and the Time Lord. They make one heck of a family, these two."

"And Luke." Rani added.

"And Luke," Clyde agreed. "He'll fit in, alright."

A/N: No Clyde and Rani in the future chapters, I'm afraid. I just wanted us to sort of enter this relationship along with someone from outside, that's the only reason I featured them in here.