'It's bigger on the inside,' I whispered.

The Doctor looked at me, amused, one hand on the knee of the leg that was crossed across his lap. His crooked smile, tilted up, was both fascinating and flirtatious. At least…that was how I was reading it.

'It's a…wibbly wobbly, timey wimey thing.'

'Oh I get that. Completely. This is a time machine, isn't it?'

'What gave it away?'

I leaned in closer to him and said, 'The wibbly wobbly…timey wimey stuff.'

'That makes…sense.'

He watched me dance away from him, over to the control panel, which I immediately started messing around with. Why was there caution in his expression? I rolled my eyes at him. 'And then there's the bow tie.'

'Hey! Bow ties are cool,' he said defensively.

'Oh, I know, Sherlock. Bow ties are definitely cliché 1890.' I slammed down on a lever and we shot forwards, spinning a little.

'What are you doing?' He sounded panicked.

I looked down at the buttons I was pressing, the switches and the bits and bobs. 'Flying through some sort of annoying, frequency interrupting…vortex?'

He strode quickly towards me, closing the distance between us until we were nose to nose. 'How do you know about a vortex?'

I winked at him, then commented, 'You're eyes are older than your face.'

The eyes in question tightened. 'Yes. People tend to notice that.' He withdrew and sat carefully on his beloved time machine.

'Yeah, well, that's what I do. Notice.' I sat down on the control panel next to him. 'Scary thing is, what I notice isn't all that normal.'

'Pah.' He flapped his hands at me. 'Normal is boring, normal is…it's ridiculous, it doesn't define…normal is…' he trailed off, and I looked at him into the silence. He stared back, though he didn't really seem to be seeing me. 'Normal is not you,' he murmured.

Eyes never leaving my face, he said, 'There are so many things I could show you, so many things that are wondrously, brilliantly abnormal, the whole of time and space and relative thinking…'

I flicked the switch just above my head, ignoring him, and the lighting dimmed.

'So where do we start?' I whispered playfully.

He leaned towards me, old, sad eyes studying my face. For a minute I thought he was going to kiss me. Then he flicked the light back on and dragged a lever down behind him, unspeaking.

I raised my hands defensively as he walked past me, more like pacing.

'Paris, 1973, age of the Axacropolitans. Very friendly, very…interesting people. Saved three hundred and fifteen on an airship suspended on the borders of a coalition galaxy; terrible government, the immigration policies were hell.'

He seemed shaken. I came up to him, slightly downhearted by his rejection but refusing to give up. I bumped my shoulder into his. 'Hey. I've waited for someone like you my whole life and you're taking me to Paris to meet some aliens? I've got my very own alien right here.' I turned him to face me. 'And I really don't need the romantic setting.'

He just looked at me.

'Shut up,' I said jokingly. 'You are definitely not pulling that one over…' I stopped. 'Oh. You're not kidding.'

He made a sound that kind of corresponded to an 'aaaargh!' as he ran his hands through his hair and slapped his face.

'Seriously? I can't believe I'm seeing this. You're married?'