Practically feeling himself turning white, Alan reared away from the Doctor, clenching his jaw to keep from screaming, lashing out against the audacity of presuming he knew everything Sarah Jane had been thinking or feeling while she was with him.

His eyes fell on the strips of colors shimmering in back of them and he suddenly wondered.

"Are they empathic? Or telepathic?" he asked, very softly, very carefully. He was still furious and, worse than that, he was just plain hurt, but even in the middle of that, he knew the Doctor was right.

A couple of overemotional blokes just parking themselves in the middle of a party could put a damper on an empathic species. He knew that much from some of Sarah Jane's old stories.

Then again, it wouldn't be the first time he was pointing in the wrong direction.