Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor was pressing buttons and flipping switches on the hexagonal control board.
"Something's odd, about all this," he said, not turning his gaze from the screen.
I raised my eyebrows. "Isn't everything odd when you're time traveling?"
"The Lystrovians didn't evolve to get gold skin and blue eyes until the year 99,999,999,999,999. That's the year before the universe ends."
The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and the Doctor kept turning knobs and pulling levers. "Lexi knew we were time travelers," I said, walking around to stand beside him.
"Yes," he replied, pressing a button and looking up at the screen in front of him.
"How?"
"Um, well. What with being a time traveler and all, going places, seeing things, getting involved, many people throughout history and in the future have noticed me."
"So," I said, nodding slowly, "They put some things about you up on the internet, and when Lexi's mind flooded, she figured out who we are."
"Exactly."
"And those Judoon..."
"What about them?" the Doctor asked, turning towards me.
"I've seen them before. A few years ago, in the hospital, they said I was human and would be catalogued."
The Doctor seemed to grow paler.
"What? What's wrong...?"
"Nothing." he turned back to the TARDIS console.
"Saw you, too...." I said slowly.
He took a deep breath. "Coincidence," he said quickly. "Just a coincidence."
"Yeah," I agreed, biting my lip. I didn't tell him that I had seen him multiple other times, and that he had even met and talked me once. Something just didn't seem right, the way he responded...
**************************
"Question, Doctor," I said, sitting down on the edge of the TARDIS's console.
"Hm?" he asked, looking up from something on the reading screen. He looked like I'd just pulled him out of a dream, a hint of sadness deep in the shadows of his brown eyes.
"How would you explain time? Like... time travel. Does time just happen and that's that, or can it... change?"
"Ah, Lisa, brilliant question," he replied. "Just brilliant. Come here."
I walked over to where he was standing, hastily deleting a picture of him and a red-haired woman standing together in a place that looked like ancient China. I had seen her with the Doctor before...
He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and buzzed the computer, pulling up something on the screen. "This is a video from a few years ago... Just going to fast forward it..."
The screen zoomed through the different frames of the video. I caught a glimpse of the medical student talking before it slowed down.
The Doctor on-screen sighed. "People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbley-wobbley... timey-wimey... Stuff."
I burst out laughing.
"Yeah, I know," said the Doctor. "Wibbley-wobbley... it's a technical term. And most people don't understand it so don't feel bad if--"
"Ah, no," I said, "but it makes sense! I mean...." I demonstrated what I was thinking with my hands. "If time's a big ball, and if you're in any one point in time, it's like you can cross over.... And it's like it's always happening. Time is always happening. Right now, my mum is making dinner in our flat back home, Abraham Lincoln is being shot, and Neil Armstrong is landing on the moon." I sighed. I didn't know how it all made sense, but it did. Everything.
The Doctor just stared at me in amazement. "Lisa Anderson. You. Are smart. No, you're more than smart. You're brilliant. Actually, you're more than brilliant-- You're clever. And I think you just might deserve..." He drew something out of his pocket. "This."
I took it from his outstretched hand, and turned it over in my palm. "And... what is... this?"
"Plug it into your cell phone," explained the Doctor, "and you can call your mum. Actually, you can call anyone in time and space. Superphone."
I gaped at him. "You're kidding me."
The Doctor raised his eyebrows, daring me to try.
I dialed the phone number for my flat, and I was surprised when it actually started to ring.
"Lisa Janie Anderson where the hell have you been?" shouted my mother.
I jerked the phone away from my head as she kept on yelling. "Mum!!"
"I've been so worried about you! And Nikki's gone out of her way, putting up posters, making phone calls..."
"Mum!"
"Yes, sweetie?"
"How long have I been gone?"
"What the hell do you mean, 'how long have I been gone'?" she asked shrilly.
"Oi! Just answer the question."
"Two months."
"What?" I asked.
"You've been missing for two months."
"Hold on just a minute." I held my phone to my chest and stared at the Doctor. "Two months." I told him. "I've been 'missing' for two months."
He opened his mouth to say something, then quickly shut it again. "Must be a... bad connection..." he muttered.
"Mum?" I asked putting my cell phone back to my head.
"Lisa!"
"I'm... gonna be gone for a bit. Traveling."
"Traveling?" she yelled. "What the hell are you gonna be traveling for?"
"I'll be back soon."
"How soon?"
"I don't know..."
"Then where are you?"
Well mum, I thought, I'm in a spaceship that's bigger on the inside in the middle of the universe, somewhere in time and space. "I'll talk to you later!" I said, making my voice sound cheery (which I was most certainly not). "Love you! Tell Nikki to stop with the 'lost' posters. Bye..."
"Lisa! Lisa, just tell me where you are!"
I hung up and stared at the Doctor, who was looking quite uncomfortable, and seemed to be particularly interested in his red Converse.
"Two months."
"When the phone line reaches back through time and space it doesn't always get the exact date right," he explained, talking quickly.
"Oh." I pocketed my phone and turned toward the console. "Well, we'll worry about that later." Smiling, I put my worries behind me. "I want to go somewhere."
"Or some-when," reminded the Doctor, grinning and walking around the TARDIS. "You ready?"
"Ready as I'll ever be!"
