"Oi!"

Claire jumped and spun in a circle, nearly falling over in the process, and screamed, loudly, her eyes darting about to find where the voice had come from. Once she had righted herself, her gaze focused upon a man who looked in his early twenties, maybe thirties, wearing a suit jacket with a button down shirt and a bow tie. Bow tie. Weird. His hair was in a state that she could only define as being haphazard and messy as hell from the front. He has taller than her, by about three or four inches.

To be brief, he looked like a madman.

Before she could get out another word, he stepped closer and looked down at her with intensity, "Who are you and what are you doing in my TARDIS?"

She opened her mouth to answer, but stopped and gave the man a questioning look after the question actually sunk in. The part with the word 'TARDIS'–which struck her as the oddest word she'd heard that day–in particular. She had heard quite a few odd words that day, what with her uncle being drunk off his tail end and speaking gibberish as a result, but those were all gibberish, unlike this, whereas this crazy word was simply thrown into the sentence like an average word, almost as if it were perfectly normal to say it.

Claire shook her head to clear it and glanced over the man again. He still looked as crazy as ever, just a little more amused with her than before. She rubbed the back of her head and tilted it at him. "Could you repeat the question please?"

He actually smiled at her and turned her around to look at the curious control-panel-like thing that took up a great deal of the illogically large inside. "You're standing in the TARDIS. Time and Relative Dimension in Space. My Time and Relative Dimension in Space. Why are you in it?"

This man owned the box she'd been documenting for ten years! She began to walk in a circle around him, getting a full picture of him as she slowly spoke, "So…you're the man who owns the box?"

He gave her a look similar to the one she'd given earlier. "Yes. I'm the Doctor, who are you?"

"I'm Claire," she placed her hands on her hips, almost defiantly, and after a moment, she chuckled. "So, Doctor What? You have to have a name."

"I told you, I'm the Doctor."

"That's not a name, it's a title."

"Of course it is, to your human paradigm."

Her eyebrows shot up. Was he insulting her? Wait…human paradigm. He had said her 'human paradigm'. What did he mean by that? He was human! He looked human, and spoke like a human. By the whole "if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's a duck" principle, the Doctor was human, right? Her face returned to one of confusion. "Now wait a second! Don't go insulting humanity when you're a human, too!"

The Doctor chuckled, "No, I'm not."

"Oh," Claire's tone slipped into sarcasm, "then I suppose you're an alien, traveling through space in this blue box?"

"And time."

Claire's jaw dropped, "Are you joking me?"

He walked in a circle around her, "No, I'm not, actually. I'm quite serious. I'm not human and the TARDIS is basically a space ship. Remember what I said back a few moments ago?"

She repeated in shock, "Time and Relative Dimension in Space," her eyes widened, "this is a time machine, too?"

"Bingo!"

Claire pressed her finger against his chest, "You're a madman."

"With a box."

"With a box…"

"Yes, now kindly leave my box."

"The blue box," she pressed on, her finger slowly lifting away from the Doctor's chest.

"Yes," he backed away, and began walking toward the control console.

"That I've been taking pictures of for ten years."

"Ye–ten years," the Doctor whipped back around to stare at her in shock, "you've been taking pictures of the TARDIS?"

Claire nodded.

"For ten years?"

She nodded again.

"How old are you?"

"Eighteen."

"You're awful young to be stalking someone for that long!"

She ran up to him, "I haven't been stalking anyone! My parents didn't believe the box existed so I tried to draw a picture! But there wasn't the right color of blue. The next time I saw it was when I was eight. I had a Polaroid camera with me, so I took a picture! Have been ever since."

"And you're the one calling me a madman," the Doctor retorted with a chuckle, pointing at himself as he did so. "How many times have you spotted the TARDIS, may I ask?"

"Sixty," Claire responded with a nod and a quirked brow, "unless I get a picture this time, then it'll be sixty-one. I like to keep it even, though."

"You mad girl, keeping tabs! I haven't even been to London sixty times…yet."

"Yet?" she was about to question further, but remembered the aspect of this box being a time and space machine. "Oh, yeah, time doesn't really tether you, does it? If you're some time-and-space-traveling alien."

"No, it doesn't. Makes things complicated if you keep running into people out of order. Like if I left and then came back two minutes later but then you were eight years old. Of course that hasn't happened otherwise we wouldn't be just meeting, now would we?"

She leaned back on her heels, "Makes sense…sort of."

"Now," the Doctor leaned forward onto his toes to mimic the direction of the physical conversation, "if you've been keeping tabs on the TARDIS, you must want to do something with it."

"Only if you'd allow me."

"I wouldn't. I may be persuaded to take you somewhere, however."

"Like where?"

"I don't know," he shrugged, "it depends on you. Or, if you'd like, I could surprise you. Take you somewhere or some-when, and then drop you back off here before you're even missed."

A wicked smile crossed Claire's lips, looking up at the Doctor. "Surprise me, Madman."