The fireplace room is different: all red and gold. The Doctor walks in and calls Reinette's name -- "Just checking you're okay" -- and a beautiful young woman appears as he lightly strums a harp. She clearly recognizes the Doctor, but he doesn't notice her until she clears her throat. Then he...bumbles: "Oh! Hello! Um, I was just looking for Reinette. Uh, this is still her room, isn't it? I've been away, not sure how long." Reinette's mother calls to her from the hall, and Reinette tells her to wait in the carriage. The Doctor begins to grin wildly. "It is customary, I think," Reinette teases, "to have an imaginary friend only during one's childhood. You are to be congratulated on your persistence." They greet each other warmly and he takes in the somewhat overwhelming visual: "Reinette! Goodness, how you've...grown." She steps toward him and chides him for not having aged a day: "That is tremendously impolite of you."

The Doctor bumbles and stutters and gets weird some more, finally determining that he should leave, because this is quite possibly really creepy. (Although the fact that this is, like, his entire job and he's still not sure what to do about it makes me think we could hardly make the decision for him.) "Don't want your mother finding you up here with a strange man, do we?" says the Doctor. Reinette asks how he could possibly be a stranger, since she's known him her whole life. (Not to mention that he totally beat up the literal monster under her literal bed. That's a keeper right there. I won't be crude, but that's services rendered, in my opinion. There are entire neighborhoods still thankful for the Great Carver Scare of 2005, and what it required for my personal comfort.) "I came the quick route," the Doctor tells Reinette lamely (for now), and she touches his cheek: "You seem to be flesh and blood, at any rate, but this is absurd. Reason tells me you cannot be real." The Doctor takes her in and shakes his head, bringing sexy back by sheer force of will: "You never want to listen to reason..." A servant calls to Reinette from outside, and she gives another by-and-by, and looks back at the Doctor regretfully. "So many questions. So little time." She grabs the Doctor and kisses him hardcore, which is awesome, and he flails a bit before kissing her back. At the servant's hysterical shouts -- "Mademoiselle Poisson!" -- she grabs a purse and runs out full-tilt without looking back. (Devil-may-care? Check. Arch? Check. Well-spoken? Check. Sassy? Check. Gorgeous? A world of check.) The Doctor loiters, looking idiotic, and finally puts it together -- just as the servant is noticing him standing there: "Poisson? Reinette Poisson? No...no, no, no, no, no way, Reinette Poisson!" He starts yelling at the servant phrases that seem to be questions but are actually just shouts: "Later Madame Etoiles? Later still mistress of Louis XV, uncrowned Queen of France? Actress, artist, musician, dancer, courtesan? Fantastic gardener?" The Doctor laughs wildly, and the servant asks who the hell he is. Indeed. He reaches back and triggers the fireplace giddily: "I'm the Doctor. And I just snogged Madame de Pompadour!"