I stared at Desiree with a mixture of outrage, shock and horror. My mind raced with conflicting emotions.

"You were aware of the time loop the whole time?" I shouted.

She shrugged. "I don't know. More or less."

"I guess it makes sense I mean, it is your time bomb..." I swallowed. "But what about all those times we kissed in the brig? Why were you being so monotonous? It was like I was kissing a robot!"

Her brow furrowed in puzzlement. "What are you talking about? We only kissed twice."

I smacked my head. "All right. It seems we both have gaps in our memories. Let's compare notes."

And so I told her about every encounter we had together.

She shivered. "I only remember half of that. We actually kissed that many times?"

I nodded. "As a quote-unquote `distraction.'"

She gave me a faint smile. "If you want, I can make up for it with some variety..."

I reddened. "That's not necessary."

Her smile faded. "I only thought about slashing my wrists. I never actually did it. I mean, why would I? I was on a suicide mission anyway."

"I don't know," I said. "I must have gotten you really upset."

"I only remember you saying that my panties had little hearts on them, and you thought you saw tentacles hanging out."

I laughed. "I do not remember that."

"And we only danced once. It was pigheaded for you to use me to get food at the buffet, but I forgave you."

Grinning, I said, "Your time loop must have been nice."

I caressed her shoulder. "So what did I forget? What happened in yours?"

"It begins with you telling me about the TARDIS."

My eyes widened. "But I'd never do that!"

She chuckled. "Don't be so sure."

She began her story.

Apparently, Desiree had sneaked onto the Island Princess by stowing away inside a crate of claw colorizers in Boca Mruf's ship. She had worn an oxygen mask, because I guess it's standard policy to vacuum seal storage bays when traveling through space.

She spent several hours hiding beneath a heavy mound of multicolored plastic disks, and only the noisy singing and rummaging of the crab creature gave her any indication that they had landed.

The moment Boca scuttled off, she sneaked out. She could tell by the faint shimmering in the hallways that the Quarks had already taken over.

Having memorized the ship's schematics, she hurried downstairs with her nerve gas, uncapping the cylinders inside the main air distributor.

Along the way, she noticed a facet of the ship that hadn't been documented on the blueprint. The TARDIS. She opened the door with her sonic hand.

While interesting to her, she saw nothing Quark related inside, so she hurried off.

"As I was running down the corridor near Captain Salty's," Desiree said. "I accidentally tripped over your face. You awoke right away."

"I don't remember that at all!" I protested.

She just gave me a look that said, "We've had this discussion already."

I shrugged and asked her to continue.

"Looking around, I could see your companions, still unconscious. And then I knelt down, staring into your beautiful brown eyes..."

It all sounded wonderfully romantic. I wished I could have actually remembered it.

"Although I found you somewhat cute, I didn't care about you or anything yet. I was just trying to figure out what you were doing on the floor, so I injected you with the truth serum."

"You did what!" I cried.

My girlfriend gave me an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry, but at the time I felt I had to do it. You know, to save the universe."

I sighed. "One thing I can say for you. You're assertive."

Desiree grinned.

She told me about how she questioned me, asking me what I was doing there and how I got there. When I told her about the TARDIS, she thanked me and gently laid me on the floor, setting Zanie on my chest.

Of course you know what happened next. I think if she could have figure out how to pilot the thing, she would have never made that time bomb.

Actually, she made attempts, but that's later in her story.

After rooting through the TARDIS some more, she resumed her sweep of the Island Princess, and learned about the captain. That's when people started waking up.

She couldn't figure out how to get buffet food any better than I could. When she tried it, Mole Man tried to report her to security, so she sneaked off to Captain Salty's, where her four armed friend Ajani hooked her up with some grub, free of charge.

I won't bore you with telling you how I first met Desiree again. The fact that she pulled up a stool next to us in order to spy on us makes me a little less guilty about insulting her.

You already heard about what happened next, so I won't subject you to a time loop within a time loop.

The part that varies is how Desiree describes our meeting in her cabin suite. Well, not actually her suite, per se, but the vacant one she broke into.

"I had a knife out, thinking about suicide," she said. "But I set it on a dresser, deciding that I had assembled the bomb for a reason, and if I truly intended to kill myself, I should take the Dominators with me."

That wasn't what I remembered, but I decided to just take her word on that.

"I didn't close the door all the way, and your dog came in, pawing on me, licking me. I recognized whose it was right away. For a moment, I thought that maybe, just maybe, you sent the dog into my room to comfort me."

She told me my rude insulting comments, and the unkind brush-off really crushed her, which made me feel like the world's biggest jerk. When I gave her my belated apology, she kissed me on the lips and told me what she went through next.

I guess she didn't quite master spying on the Master, for Boca reported her to security. I'm guessing the crab remembered something from the time loops, for this was a frequent occurrence, no matter what she tried to do.

She said she met Senator Tayari, but she despised politicians, and this one seemed a bit soft passive-aggressive to her. They didn't say much to each other.

Then I ended up sharing a cell with her.

You have a pretty good idea of how things went from there. The ship ended up exploding into a million pieces, and time started over.

Unlike me, Desiree awoke inside the drum of crab cosmetics, inside a cargo hold that smelled so strongly of foundations and powders that it made her gag every time.

By comparison, sleeping on the hard uncomfortable hallway floor sounded pretty good.

Excited and confused by the apparent success of the explosive, my girflriend jumped out of the crate a little too eagerly.

The cosmetics queen spotted her, fired some taser-like device, and Desiree collapsed on the floor.

When she recovered, the human Dalek found herself tied securely to a chair, surrounded by three of the crab aliens, who glowered at her, threateningly brandishing small tube shaped weapons and little guns.

"I thought they were going to throw me into the brig," Desiree said. "But no. What they did to me was far, far worse."