#and river - she was supposed to be different. a touchstone. someone who would be able to keep up with him. stay with him. they would always

[iceinherheart-kissonherlips]

you'll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you  🎶

[accio-spaceman]

VORTEX Magazine - Issue 87

May 2016

Download for FREE on the Big Finish website

  The Tenth Doctor Adventures

Matt Fitton, Jenny T Colgan, James Goss, and Russell T Davies weigh in on the new “The Tenth Doctor Adventures: Volume 1″ series.

Technophobia 

[Above Matt Fitton, Jenny T Colgan, and James Goss]

 Responsible for bringing the stories to life has been script editor Matt Fitton, who has written Technophobia, the first of the Big Finish Tenth Doctor stories, as well as working with the other scribes on the series. Jenny T Colgan has written Time Reaver, while Death and the Queen has come from the imagination of James Goss.

 (Full Article Under Cut)

Talking of this series, Matt says: “It had a long gestation period – when the licence first came through, we started thinking about different ways of doing Tenth Doctor stories.

“When it became clear we had Donna as well, we sent a pitch to be approved by the BBC, so we could give them a concept of what we wanted to do, story-wise.

“We decided to do something similar to the way they did things with the TV series. The first one was going to be a story set in contemporary London with a strange threat, so it was similar to a series opener of the era. The second story would be set in outer space, with something weird, wonderful and alien, and then the third story would be something possibly historical or a bit more emotional and based on Earth.

“These were the briefs that want out to Jenny and James, so they were able to flesh out their stories. We had lots of exchanges of ideas, back and forth.

“James is a good, solid, clever writer who you know you can rely on. I was really pleased to get Jenny involved as we were keen to have something of a name attached to the series, and she is such a good writer who loves her Doctor Who too. It’s great to have a Sunday Times best-selling writer with us!”

In order for Matt to get the feel for the era again, he had to dig out his DVD collection.

In Technophobia, the Doctor and Donna visit London’s Technology Museum for a glimpse into the future, but things don’t go to plan. The most brilliant IT brain in the country can’t use her computer. More worrying, the exhibits are attacking the visitors, while outside, people seem to be losing control of the technology that runs their lives. Is it all down to simple human stupidity, or is something more sinister going on? Beneath the streets, the Koggnossenti are waiting. For all of London to fall prey to technophobia...

Smiling, Matt says: “It was a question of going back and watching the episodes again, which is what I do with the classic series. You watch the episodes and how the characters work – the Doctor and Donna are just such vivid characters, as they are so full of life on screen.

“I suppose there’s an added pressure knowing you’ve got David and Catherine performing your lines. Everyone knows Catherine’s a brilliant comedian and some people forget just how great an actress she is too – you want to give her something to really work with.

“You know David’s so good and will be able to do anything you give to him.”

David Richardson says: “Technophobia began life as something else altogether. I’d been holding on to the idea for a story about sleep deprivation – what would happen if the whole world lost the ability to sleep? That was going to be our first episode. And then we submitted it to Cardiff, and of course Sleep No More was planned for series nine on television, so there was a clash. Matt Fitton rather brilliantly took the core idea and twisted it into something else entirely different but really clever.”

 “Everyone knows Catherine’s a brilliant comedian, and some people forget just how great an actress she is too – you want to give her something to really work with.”

– Matt Fitton

 Time Reaver

[Above Jenny T Colgan wearing an “I 'heart heart' Gallifrey” t-shirt.]

 The second adventure for the Doctor and Donna is Time Reaver. Although Jenny – an accomplished romantic comedy novelist as well as a prolific writer of Doctor Who fiction – has since written a play for Big Finish’s first River Song series, which was released earlier this year, she actually wrote her Tenth Doctor story first.

In Time Reaver, the TARDIS lands on Calibris, the spaceport planet where anything goes. The alien Vacintians are trying to impose some order over the smugglers and pirates that crowd the port. Soon the Doctor and Donna discover why. An illegal weapon is loose on the streets. A weapon that destroys lives... Slowly and agonisingly. The Time Reaver.

Despite having written for the Doctor several times in prose – including In The Blood, a new Tenth Doctor and Donna BBC novel being released this month to tie-in with the Big Finish audios – this was Jenny’s first script, a fact she was extremely excited about.

“I never believed that people actually jump for joy but I did actually hop around the kitchen a little bit. Then I was so terrified I’d actually tell someone I got horribly paranoid. But it was an extremely exciting moment.

“I pitched a few things and they chose the one they liked. Funnily enough, Time Reaver is quite traditional sci-fi – it’s a mechanical interchange planet, like a massive interplanetary King’s Cross – whereas my friend and colleague James Goss has written one about Donna getting married, so it feels a bit like we’re on each others’ turf!”

Jenny didn’t feel the need to go back to watch some TV episodes featuring the Doctor and Donna.

She explains: “I’ve written for four different Doctors and you do have to shake their voices out of your head a little bit, just to give yourself a bit of a mental shake up because they’re all so different. Matt Smith is nothing like Peter Capaldi who is obviously nothing like David, etc. The Tenth Doctor understands human emotions, whereas the Eleventh gets a bit bamboozled by them, and the Twelfth understands in theory but he doesn’t really care very much – although he’s learning...

“But I don’t need to go back and watch series episodes, I watch them all the time. I can recite Forest of the Dead off by heart (I shan’t, but I can). Silence in the Library is a real touchstone for me. I have two Tenth Doctor/Donna projects coming out in May: one is set just before Library and one just after Midnight.

“Here is a funny thing; my kids were watching Silence in the Library last week because the six- year-old is finally old enough to deal with the skeletons, and when River says ‘Have we done picnic at Asgard yet?’ (which I wrote this year for the Eleventh Doctor and River), they all turned to me and went ‘But how did you know?’ And then when he says ‘Why would I give you my screwdriver?’, they all went, ‘Because mummy wrote that you had a sonic trowel and the Doctor thought it was rubbish!’.

“It was just so, so very lovely to be able to play with all of that when you’re writing for Doctors past, and so very special to me.”

Death and the Queen

[Above James Goss holding a cat.]

 The concluding play in this first run of Tenth Doctor adventures is Death and the Queen, by James Goss. As we’ve seen in The Runaway Bride, and learned subsequently, Donna Noble has never been lucky in love. So when, one day, her Prince does come, she is thrilled to have the wedding of all weddings to look forward to. The Doctor isn’t holding his breath for an invitation, and her future mother-in-law is certainly not amused. But on the big day itself, Donna finds her castle under siege from the darkest of forces, marching at the head of a skeleton army. When it looks like even the Doctor can’t save the day, what will Queen Donna do to save her people from Death itself?

James explains how the conversation went when he was asked to write the play: “David Richardson: ‘This is obviously top secret and you can’t tell anyone’.

“Me: ‘I think I’ve just told a whole train carriage’.”

James is no stranger to writing for the Tenth Doctor – his BBC Audio play Dead Air, read by David Tennant, was voted 2010 Audiobook of the Year. The award was selected by voters visiting the Audiobook store. It beat other books nominated including Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years, Othello, Animal Farm, Shakespeare in Love and War Horse.

James wasn’t given much of a brief for this tale, as he says he was given: “Not much really. Just keep the Doctor and Donna together as much as possible and have them having a great amount of fun. Which I hope they do. “I had another idea which is also amazing!”

With the script having been finished months before it was actually recorded, has it been a nervous wait for James?

“Not really. So often these things are a tearing hurry, but this was a nice sense of it sitting on a shelf, gently maturing. I re-read it the night before the recording and sweated fear.”

And is he excited to hear the finished play?

“VERY. How else does anyone answer this? Donna Noble is getting married again. The Tenth Doctor’s trying to help. What could possibly go wrong?”  

 “So often these things are a tearing hurry, but this was a nice sense of it sitting on a shelf, gently maturing. I re-read it the night before the recording and sweated fear.”

– James Goss

 Russell T Davies

[Above Russell T Davies in the doorway of the TARDIS.]

 Another person who’s particularly looking forward to hearing the plays is former Doctor Who executive producer Russell T Davies. He created both the Tenth Doctor and Donna, and in his role on TV, he oversaw every single word which came out of their mouths.

In an exclusive interview with this magazine, Vortex asked him how odd does it feel, that a part of his time on Doctor Who is now being brought to life on audio by Big Finish?

He says: “Actually, yes, good question, because odd is the right word. Along with wonderful and exciting and brilliant. But I pored over every single word the Doctor and Donna ever said to each other – apart from Steven Moffat’s two-parter, I probably wrote most of their dialogue – so to not know what they’re going to say next is a little bit strange. Just a little bit! In a good way. But really, I can’t wait to hear those two actors riff off each other again. David and Catherine are such good friends in real life, there’s a genuine spark between the Doctor and Donna.”

Russell wasn’t involved with the storylines?

“Not at all!”, he says. “Well, they ran them past me in simple synopses, but it’s Big Finish, they know what they’re doing. And besides, you can’t make these things with someone sitting far away, trying to meddle. It’s a Big Finish licence, so it’s a Big Finish show, it’s their version of the Doctor and Donna. And that’s Big Finish’s speciality – recreating eras faithfully but always finding something new to say.”

And how excited is he to hear some new stories, being brought to life by David and Catherine?

“Very! Those two, back in action, after all these years, it’s an absolute joy. Just the other day, I was in Superdrug, and the woman at the till asked if I wanted a bag, and I said no, I’ll put it in my pocket, and she sighed wistfully and said, ‘Women don’t have pockets.’ And it made me think of Donna! I laughed to myself for about 10 minutes afterwards, remembering Donna’s line about getting her wedding dress from Chez Alison. It made me think how much I miss her. And bang on cue, here she is, back again! And I don’t think a single day passes without someone telling me how much they loved David as the Doctor. It’s an honour to get him and Catherine back together. Yes, I’m excited!”

 “Those two, back in action, after all these years, it’s an absolute joy.”

– Russell T Davies

– VORTEX Magazine, Issue 87, Pages 6-15

The Tenth Doctor Adventures: Volume 01 

Technophobia

London’s Technology Museum faces a revolution. Is it all down to simple human stupidity, or is something more sinister going on?

Time Reaver

An illegal weapon is loose on the streets of spaceport planet Calibris - and the Vacintians are closing in…

Death and the Queen

The Wedding of all Weddings comes under attack by a skeleton army. Can Queen Donna save her people from Death itself?

Written By: Matt Fitton, Jenny T Colgan, James Goss

Directed By: Nicholas Briggs

Cast: David Tennant (The Doctor), Catherine Tate (Donna Noble), Niky Wardley (Bex), Rachael Stirling (Jill Meadows), Chook Sibtain (Brian), Rory Keenan (Kevin), Jot Davies (Lukas), Alex Lowe (Soren), Sabrina Bartlett (Cora), Terry Molloy (Rone), John Banks (Gully), Dan Starkey (Dorn), Blake Ritson (Rudolph), Alice Krige (Queen Mum), Beth Chalmers (Hortense), Alan Cox (Death)

Available as deluxe five-disc box set, limited edition of 5,000, and as individual vanilla releases.

For full details visit www.bigfinish.com .

[pizza-is-my-buziness]

Thanks always to @truth-from-lies-within-fiction for the amazing fics, the amazing ideas, and the inspiration! Hope you don’t mind the little homage to your amazing writing!

The night spent in the city chasing a hundred dollars, a towed car, and a bunch of kids honestly feels like a dream. Jenny is still certain that she’ll open her eyes and find herself in life exactly as it was a week ago: full of college applications, letters of recommendation, and outfits that match right down to the socks on her feet.

A part of her aches for that life, all the boxes she had once belonged in. It had been simple and orderly; it had all made sense, had followed a perfect outline. Maps existed for a reason, after all. They were there to help and to follow, to make sure that you got where you were going. Jenny still isn’t entirely sure that she knows how to push forward without a map to follow.

Because it definitely feels like her map is gone, blown out the window or lost in the river and there’s really not much that she can do about it. On the surface, not much about her life has changed, not really. But everything feels different. She’d never really known what she was missing, never really understood what other possibilities existed out there…and now that she’s seen what else could be…well Jenny is having a hard time not wanting those things again.

Jenny studies herself in the mirror, her fingers paused in the midst of working her hair into a perfect braid. She’s starting this process three times already, attempting to tame the fly-aways, annoyed that her mind keeps wandering and leaving her with a less than perfect braid.

She’s thinking about that night, the one in the city. The one that still feels like a dream. The one with Lola.

Her reflection looks like the Jenny that she was before. Aside from a slight change in her outfit, there’s no real difference. For a week, she’s gone to school. She’s had dinner with her parents. She’s done her homework and presided over club meetings and gone to bed each night and woken up each morning and things have been normal. No one has looked at her and wondered what happened to the Jenny Parker that they used to know.

But Jenny feels different. Something inside her is…anticipatory. Eager. Awake.

She hasn’t seen Lola since crossing paths at Vasquez’s office. Lola had texted her later that day, thanking her again for the picture of the two of them, confirming that she got the internship. Jenny had hesitated after sending a congratulatory message with too many emojis, debating asking Lola if she wanted to meet up for coffee to celebrate in person. To be her touchstone, her reminder of the brave new Jenny Parker she had become. But she had decided against it, her fragile bravery faltering, and she had texted Zac instead.

They had gone out for coffee instead and Jenny had spent the entirety of the date wondering why being here didn’t make her feel half as excited as she had felt that night in the city, running from ticket scalpers and rapping on stage.

Jenny glances at her phone, resting beside her hairbrush on the vanity. She hasn’t really texted Zac since that night, hasn’t bothered to make plans with him or say more than a quick hello in the hallways at school. She thinks about changing that right now, thinks about texting him to see about making plans and turning herself back into the Jenny Parker who would have swooned on sight at the chance to have coffee with Zac Chase.

Or she could text…

The phone rings and Jenny nearly falls off the stool in front of the mirror, her knee hitting the underside of the vanity.

Clearly there’s still some of the old Jenny Parker in her after all.

Helen Anderson’s name is flashing on her phone screen as her phone vibrates, demanding an answer. Immediately, Jenny’s heart seizes in her chest, her throat growing tight. Is this what anaphylaxis feels like? Is she going to die just by looking at someone’s name on her caller ID?

Jenny tries to calm her racing heart, attempting to swallow. It’s been over a week since the whole babysitting fiasco. If Helen Anderson had wanted to talk to her about all of that…if she had known about what had happened…surely she would have said something by now.

Right?

Exhaling, Jenny reaches for the phone, plastering a smile on her face as she stares at her reflection once more. The whole fake-it-til-you-make-it situation, right?

“Mrs. Anderson,” Jenny says cheerfully as she puts the phone to her ear. “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine Jenny,” Mrs. Anderson says and Jenny tries to read something in her tone, trying to figure out the exact purpose of this phone call. “Listen, are you free this afternoon? There are some things I would like to discuss with you and I would prefer we do it in person.”

Jenny is pretty sure this is exactly what a heart attack feels like. She’s about to drop dead right here on her bedroom floor, the phone still clutched tightly in her hand, an expression of horror frozen on her face. Poor Jenny Parker, people will say at her funeral, she always was afraid of getting in trouble.

Or, more likely, Jenny thinks most people will hear of her death and just say wait, who?

“Of course!” Jenny says brightly, perhaps a little too loudly, into the phone. “This afternoon works for me!”

“Great,” Mrs. Anderson says, “see you at noon.”

Jenny looks at the phone in her hand, now silent, feeling the sting of betrayal. How dare her trusted phone connect her with her executioner? At least she only has about an hour until she’s supposed to meet with the Andersons. It’s better than having to spend hours waiting for her impending doom.

Jenny tries to take her mind off things by working on her college applications, her calculus homework, her biology project. She tries playing a few games on her phone, watching videos on YouTube of cats being afraid of cucumbers, tries to distract herself by looking through the pictures Lola had sent her two days before -all the pictures of that night in the city.

Proof that it had actually happened.

But nothing really takes her mind off going to meet Helen, not even studying the picture of her and Lola.

It honestly never occurs to her that Lola might somehow be involved in all of this too until Jenny pulls up outside the Andersons’ house and sees Lola getting out of her Jeep.

Lola turns around, lifting a hand to shield her eyes from the sun, and Jenny swears that her heart stops for the second time that day.

She hasn’t seen Lola in days, not in person anyway. And seeing her now…Jenny wonders how many times a person can contemplate their own impending death in one day.

Lola smiles at her, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her jacket and leaning against the hood of her car, waiting for Jenny to fumble her way out of the driver’s seat of her own pathetically boring car. She figures this is the real reason that she hadn’t reacted out to Lola since that night: she’d been too afraid, too worried that whatever magic had brought them together, had made Lola smile at her, had made her worth Lola’s time, would vanish once they were back in the suburbs.

She hadn’t been willing to take that chance.

And now…now Jenny really wishes she had texted Lola that day instead of Zac.

“Hey Parker,” Lola says when Jenny is close enough for her to sling an arm around her shoulders, a half-hug of sorts. “You got the call too, huh?”

Lola smells like something fruity and it tingles Jenny’s nose and makes it hard to think. Lola in person is way better than the Lola that has lingered in her memories during those restless nights when Jenny had replayed what happened in the city and wondered if things could ever go back to the way they had been.

If she even wanted things to go back to the way they had been.

Though, she thinks the trepidation that she feels right now, walking up the driveway toward the Andersons’ front door, is proof enough that she’s still the same old Jenny Parker she’s always been.

“What do you think she wants?” Jenny questions, slightly embarrassed at how small her voice sounds right now.

Lola smirks, shrugging. “Maybe she wants us to babysit.”

The door opens as soon as Lola rings the doorbell. Helen Anderson has always been a formidable woman. It’s one of the things Jenny has always really admired about her, one of the many things that makes her the exact woman Jenny hopes to grow up to be. But being on the receiving end of her stern expression and imposing height changes Jenny’s feelings on the matter just a little bit.

“Girls. Glad you were both available on such short notice.” Helen nods brusquely, turning back to beckon them into the house and toward the living room. “Have a seat. Can I get you some water?”

Jenny makes a sound that she hopes sounds like a ‘no thank you’ but that probably sounds a lot like nothing at all. And Lola, who seems continually unruffled, just smiles and says, “Thank you, Helen.”

Jenny looks at her, certain her eyes are bugging out of her head. “Helen?” She mouths, feeling exactly like she did when they were driving the stolen car in an effort to rescue AJ.

Lola only shrugs, plopping down on the couch. Jenny sits beside her, mostly because it’s Lola but also because she has no idea what else to do with her body.

Jenny feels Lola tense beside her and when she turns to look at the other girl, trying to figure out the cause of her sudden change in posture, she sees that Lola’s eyes have gotten a little buggy too. Following her line of sight reveals the culprit: Jenny can see Helen’s tablet sitting on the coffee table, a picture of Emily and her blessedly temporary tattoo on display.

“Are those…” Jenny swallows, feeling like she’ll never be able to pull her eyes away from the screen.

“The pictures,” Lola confirms, even though Jenny wishes the answer had been different. “Oh God, I must have sent them to her by mistake somehow.”

Jenny looks at Lola and that feeling of imminent death has returned. “Oh no, oh no, oh no,” she whispers, suddenly all too aware of Helen just in the other room. “She’s seen the pictures. She knows everything. Oh God, we’re going to jail.”

Lola crinkles her nose. “Why would we go to jail?”

“Child endangerment? Stealing a car? Lying! I don’t know!” Jenny tightens her hands into fists, trying to swallow through the tightness in her throat.

“I don’t think you can go to jail for lying,” Lola says but not unkindly, her expression softening.

Not that this logical comment makes Jenny feel better about things. “She knows what we did. She’s seen the pictures, Lola!” She gestures wildly to the tablet. “What are we going to do! This cannot be happening, oh no, what am I going to do.”

Lola reaches for her, taking Jenny’s face in her hands. Jenny’s heart jumps and she looks at Lola, stunned.

Lola just smiles at her. “Breathe, Jen, okay? I’ve got you.”

Jenny is pretty sure that she falls in love with Lola Perez in that moment.

Jenny can only stare at her as Helen comes back toward the living room. Lola lets her hands fall, giving Jenny’s hand a brief squeeze. “I’ve got you.”

Helen hands over a glass of water, ice clinking against the sides, and Jenny is envious of the easy way that Lola smiles, how she seems completely unbothered by this whole situation. Jenny can only watch as Helen settles on the edge of the couch across from the one she and Lola are currently perched on. She feels like her mouth is full of sand, her heart still hammering in her chest.

Jenny thinks now that maybe the rapid beating in her heart is because of Lola and how it had felt to have Lola’s hands against her cheeks. And how it had felt to hear Lola say those words and feel like she meant them.

But there’s still a decent amount of fear there, too.

“Jenny.” Automatically, her head snaps in the direction of Helen’s voice. “There are some…unsettling things I would like to talk to you about dealing with the last time you babysat for the Coopers. The same night I asked you to babysat but you were already booked? And you recommended Lola.”

Jenny is pretty sure her tongue is glued to the roof of her mouth. But Lola only smiles. “We had fun that night, didn’t we, Jen?” She bumps Jenny’s shoulder with her own and Jenny nods. “We ended up getting all the kids together…I hope that was okay, Helen?”

Helen just sighs. “It’s not the fact that they were together,” she says, “Donna is a good friend of mine. It’s…what you were doing.”

There’s a pause and Helen looks almost apologetically back at Jenny. “You know you’re my favorite babysitter, Jenny. I trust you with my children’s lives. That’s why all of this is just so hard for me to say. The thought that you would endanger their lives by taking them into the city…it’s almost hard to believe.”

Jenny thinks she might start crying right then and there. Because Helen is absolutely right. She’s the worst babysitter in the entire world. She wants to throw herself at Mrs. Anderson’s feet and beg for her mercy and forgiveness and promise to never, ever babysit another child again.

But even as she’s opening her mouth, Lola is leaning forward, her expression fixing itself into one of confusion. “The city? I don’t think I understand.”

Helen sighs, looking at Lola with a disappointed expression. It only makes Jenny want to cry even more. “I’ve seen the photos,” she says flatly, nudging the tablet over, “I would appreciate the truth.”

The truth, yes, of course. Jenny can do that. She should have done that a long time ago, what was she thinking? She’s not cool Jenny Parker who raps on stage and escapes cops and pawn shop guys. She’s not cool Jenny Parker who could possibly text Lola Perez to ask her to hang out or get coffee.

She’s incredibly lame, incredibly pathetic, incredibly boring Jenny Parker whose first impulse is to cry when someone starts yelling at her.

Lola leans forward, picking up the tablet. She flips through a few of the pictures and then looks up at Helen, smiling. “You think we went into the city?”

Helen lets out an exasperated sigh and gestures toward the tablet.

“This was a photography project I was working on,” Lola says. “See, I was up for this super important internship with Leon Vasquez recently and I mean he said I needed to dazzle him with my photos so I thought hey, everyone loves kids, right?” She sets the tablet back onto the table. “I asked Jenny if we could put the kids together and use them as models for my portfolio, do something really unique and different.”

Jenny is pretty sure that her expression is identical to the look on Helen’s face. Helen blinks, the surprised look on her face disappearing slightly. “A portfolio?”

Lola grins, nodding. “I got the internship, by the way,” she says, turning away to rummage through the bag slung over her shoulder. “I have my camera…I can show you some of the other pictures…”

“I don’t understand,” Helena interrupts. “All of these pictures were…staged.”

“That was part of the project,” Lola tells her, pulling out a camera Jenny hasn’t seen before. It’s not as nice as the camera she lost but she’s not surprised that Lola has another camera hanging around. “Trying new backgrounds, props, things like that. I sent the finished pictures to all the kids so they could see how they turned out and I guess I just sent them to you by mistake.” She flutters her eyelashes innocently and Jenny is impressed that Helen doesn’t seem ready to combust at the sight.

Helen shakes her head. “When Donna and I asked the kids, they had some crazy story about a pawn shop and jail and-”

“Oh, kids,” Lola laughs, waving a dismissive hand. “They really got into character, didn’t they Jenny?”

Jenny nods, which seems like a miracle. “Yeah, exactly right.”

Helen looks flummoxed, staring at the pictures in front of her like she’s not entirely sure of what she’s seeing.

Lola nudges Jenny’s shoulder, looking at her pointedly. Jenny swallows, clearing her throat. “Mrs. Anderson,” she says, “I would never, ever put your kids in danger. I would protect them with my life.”

It feels a little bit like a cheap shot, the guilt gnawing at the base of her spine.

But, at the same time, Jenny realizes that the words are true.

Lola smiles, nodding. “Jenny is the most responsible person I know,” she assures Helen. “She’s even taught me a thing or two.”

Helen hesitates for a moment before putting the tablet aside and shaking her head. She offers Jenny an apologetic smile. “I’m so, so sorry Jenny. I should have known better. This probably all seems completely ridiculous, doesn’t it?”

Jenny forces a smile. “No,” she assures her. “I understand.”

They make small talk for a few minutes more before Helen offers to show them to the door and Jenny thinks she might just collapse with relief. Helen is smiling warmly again while they head toward the front door, promising to finish Jenny’s letter of recommendation within the next few days and updating them about Bobby’s junior chef competition.

“I’d be happy to have either one of you babysit again any time,” Helen says as Jenny and Lola step back out onto the porch. “The kids really seemed to enjoy it.”

Lola flashes her a grin. “Any time.”

When the door is shut and Helen Anderson hidden from view, Jenny exhales, covering her face with her hands. “Oh my god.”

Lola turns the grin in Jenny’s direction. “See? Didn’t I say I would take care of you?”

“How do you do that?” Jenny asks, lifting her head from her hands. “How are you so…amazingly cool?”

Lola waves the words away. “I’m not that great,” she says. “I kinda got you into that mess in the first place. It was the least I could do.”

Jenny shakes her head, following Lola down the walk and toward their cars. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“Probably get into less trouble,” Lola remarks.

Jenny swallows. “I…I kinda liked it. I mean,” she shakes her head quickly, “not really the whole getting into trouble thing. But the whole…living outside the box thing.”

“Yeah?” Lola gives her a lopsided smile. “Inside the box Jenny isn’t so bad though,” she says. “We make a pretty good team.”

Again, Jenny’s heart makes an appearance in her throat, hammering wildly. “Yeah, we do.”

Lola reaches into the pocket of her jacket for her keys, hesitating for a moment before turning back to Jenny. “You want to get coffee sometime?”

“I love coffee,” Jenny blurts, “with you.”

So long cool Jenny Parker.

So long any-possibility-of-impressing-Lola-Perez.

But Lola’s smile doesn’t falter. “Great. I’ll…I’ll call you.”

“You know,” Jenny says quickly, “I’m free now.”

“What a coincidence. So am I.”