Chapter Text
They'd ended up as alien species yet again, the only human (and humanoid) in an entirely automated Companion Animal Triage & Optimal Rehoming Device Optical Gallery, more commonly known by its acronym.
Alison was relieved to see that 22nd century Earth cats, at least, looked much the same as the ones she had known back in her own time. She’d always sort of wanted a pet, but had never got around to making the commitment. With Joe it would have been a question of getting a dog as a sort of test run for eventual children, and she didn’t fancy having that discussion. It was one of the many subjects they had avoided, with the shared unspoken understanding that the longer they put off certain topics, the longer they could go without finding out how much they disagreed.
Here’s how it worked: you stood in a small kiosque and fitted a combination biofeedback sensor and VR visor onto your face. Then a stream of locally available animals poured by your eyes, too fast to make conscious decisions, but the sensors were picking up which ones caused the most emotional reaction in your brain. A small video of you, taken candidly before you entered the booth, was also flashed to the waiting animals and their emotional reactions measured through the now-universal microchips, by sensors at the front of their cages. At the end of the visit, you would take off the visor and several animals with the highest level of matching responses would be displayed. You would make the final choice “live”, as it were, then insert your credits and pick up your newly adopted animal in a handy travelling case from a hatch in the back of the device.
When the five finalists appeared under the glass, Alison glanced at the other cats (a tiny fluffy white one, a languid ginger tabby, a haughty brown calico, and a squat almost entirely black one with just a little white at its chin and between its ears), but she was immediately drawn to a lanky and slightly melodramatic siamese. It stretched, blinked up at her with startlingly blue eyes, and let out a piercing wail. Through the glass, it tried to bat at the zipper pull of her jacket. The Doctor had joined her by now, and Alison said, “This one.”
As she went to insert payment (she didn’t even want to know how they’d got a chip charged with 22nd century Euros), she was caught up in the excitement of how instinctive the choice had been, and hardly noticed that the Doctor lingered a while over the glass display, even fidgeting with some device down below the finalists’ cages. But then, in her hurry to pay, she had also missed the look of bereft bewilderment from the otherwise dignified black cat when a trapdoor opened in the floor and its cellmate disappeared.
Alison went round the back to collect her cat, and was soon poking fingers through the air holes in the carrying case to pet its ombré fur. The siamese arched its back and put its head up to be scratched. Its purring was contagious and they were so taken with each other that it was a little while before she realised the Doctor hadn’t followed her. She found them waiting at the front of the kiosque, almost grinning, holding their cape closed awkwardly. The weather wasn’t even cold or rainy, but she figured this for another of the Doctor’s odd mannerisms.
“Back to the TARDIS, then?” They balanced from one foot to the other.
“You’re sure the kitchen vending machine--”
“It’s not a vending machine! Highly specialised Gallifreyan alimentary generation technology--”
“You know what I mean. Are you sure it can make catfood and… all the other things we’ll need?” It seemed indelicate to mention cat litter, but she hoped the Doctor wouldn’t have forgotten it either.
“Positive. Made sure of that at the time of certain… incidents… in the early 90s.”
“Oooookay then. You alright?” She gestured vaguely at the Doctor’s fidgeting and hunched posture.
“Oh yes, perfectly fine!” Indeed they were smiling more than she could remember seeing. “I had to, er… see a man about a dog. Figuratively speaking, that is.”
In fact, as you will have guessed, the Doctor had been seeing a machine about a cat. And it wouldn’t be the last time that night.