Thank you for reading our fanfiction! We are very sorry that we haven't been able to post in a while, but this chapter is longer than some of the others, so it will be worth it (hopefully). Again, we are so glad that you are here! If you have any comments, use the comment section, and we will try to reply to you as soon as possible. Thank you!

Ensign Miller sat back and smiled. He fiddled with the earpiece in his ear until it became comfortable and prepared to press the record button. Jack was coming back to the brig after another trip to the medbay, and he knew from experience that this was going to be good.

As soon as the forcefield closed behind him, Jack Harkniss was accosted by his two vibrant companions, their eyes bright and excited, and his flat and dull.

"How did they heal the bones so fast?" Smith asked, nearly yanking Harkniss off his feet as he grabbed his arm with an iron grip.

"Let go of my arm."

"It broke clean in half! And it's perfect! Like it had never broken!" Smith examined it even closer, bending the elbow and prodding the skin where the break had been earlier.

"Let go of my arm." Jack's voice had a tinge of annoyance as he tried to pull free.

"You were gone for no more than ten minutes! Fifteen at most! And poof! Healed!" Smith cried. "It's fantastic! Bloody fantastic!"

"Let go of my arm." Jack bit out, gritting his teeth and looking at the floor.

"They probably used a bone regenerator," Rose said, nodding thoughtfully. "And a shot of anetrizine to numb the pain."

"Really?" Smith asked incredulously, tightening his grip on Jack's arm by accident. "How'd you know that?"

"I learned a great many things from my time in the medbay," Rose said proudly, moving her shoulders from side to side.

"No fair! I wanna go to the med bay!" Smith whined.

Jack glowered at him. "If you don't let go of my arm, you will."

"Sheesh," Smith said, tossing Jack's arm aside. "All you had to do is ask."

Jack inhaled sharply. "I did ask. Several times. But you didn't listen. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised. If you had listened to me once on this whole trip, then we wouldn't be in prison!"

"Actually, this is called a brig, not a prison," Smith corrected. "There's a difference."

"I don't care!" Jack seethed. "Call it whatever you like! My point is that you're an idiot, and we could have completely avoided this mess if you would have listened to me."

"No need to get mean," Smith pouted, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"I think he's hungry," Rose mused, studying Jack's face contemplatively, to which he huffed, averted his eyes, and balled his hands into fists at his sides.

Ensign Miller sat up in his seat expectantly.

"You know what? I am hungry," Jack bit out, his unblinking eyes locked onto Rose and Smith. "I haven't eaten all day. I'm also exhausted and sore. I've been slapped, shot, and I broke my arm. And all in the past four hours," he said slowly, his voice shuddering with anger. "I think I'm entitled to being a little bit upset."

"Don't forget when you ran into a pole," Smith added.

"When were you slapped?" Rose asked at the same time.

"You two are missing my point," Jack sighed, twisting his hands painfully.

"You had a bad day. Just say you got up on the wrong side of the bed and be done with it," Smith shrugged.

"I didn't wake up on the wrong side of the bed! I woke up on the wrong side of the universe!" Jack yelled. "All because you can't drive your stupid spaceship properly and got us trapped in an alternate timeline!"

"Hey! Don't call the TARDIS stupid! She's the best ship around!" Smith snapped, jabbing his finger into Jack's face. He crossed his arms and pouted. "And give me a break. She was made to be driven by eight people, at least. You could have been helping me."

"Neither of us know how to fly your spaceship!" Jack roared, his hands shaking by his sides.

"To be fair, neither do I, really," Smith acquiesced. "I failed the test."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" Jack growled darkly.

"Don't feel bad. I still don't have my driver's licence," Rose consoled the Doctor, looking at Jack sideways with an exasperated expression.

"You have an ancient, somewhat sentient, physics defying spaceship that can travel through time and space, and you don't even know how to fly it!" Jack snarled, and threw his head back and laughed dryly, his hands clutching at his pants's pockets.

"I learn through trial and error," Smith argued, looking a bit down at Harkniss' rambunctious laughter.

"I've seen a lot of trial and a lot of errors but very little learning."

"Hey!" Smith cried, sounding somewhat offended.

"Didn't you immediately fly your spaceship into a sun when we first met?" Rose asked Jack defensively, crossing her arms and cocking an eyebrow.

"Ha! He did!"

"It had a bomb on board and you know it, blondie!" Jack snapped. "It was the heroic thing to do."

"Yeah. You're a real hero," Rose nodded, rolling her eyes.

"A hero who runs into poles," said Smith.

They laughed. Jack did not.

"That's it. I am done!" Jack said.

"Done? What do you mean, done?" Smith scoffed.

"I mean I am done. I'm not even going to try to escape anymore. I am accepting my inevitable demise," Jack said.

"Don't be so dramatic," said Smith, rolling his eyes.

"I am not being dramatic!" said Jack melodramatically. "If I don't die here, now, then I'm obviously going to die sometime very soon at the hands of the mainiac 900 year old alien and his equally insane nineteen year old human girlfriend while visiting, I don't know, Ancient Rome or something!"

"She not my-" the Doctor protested.
"We're not dating."

"Yeah, what she said."

"Sure you're not," Jack said sarcastically, rolling his eyes and sitting down on the cot. He sighed, covered his face with the pillow, and fell silent.

"Well, this is a lot to take in," Jim Kirk said slowly, leaning back in his chair and rubbing the back of his neck. He waved at the new video Ensign Miller had sent and looked back at his First Officer, who was gazing at the video contemplatively.

"Indeed," said Spock, his eyes still fixed on the unmoving screen, his brain almost visibly turning its gears.

"And you weren't able to find any sort of code?"

"Negative, Captain. It appears they were unaware they were being recorded."

"Just like the last video," Jim mused, drumming his fingers on his arm rest.

"It is fascinating, Captain. If what they are saying are true, then it appears these intruders are from an alternate universe. It is similar to ours, but with several variations."

"An alternate universe…" Jim sighed and stood up from his chair. "You know how much I love those…" his eyes swept across the screen again. "I suppose there's only one way to find out for sure."

"Captain?"

James spun around and clapped his hands together once. "I'm going to pay the brig a little visit. Contact me if you learn anything new."

"Of course, Captain."

The doors slid shut behind him.

The doors leading to the brig opened with ease, and James Kirk strode into the room. Ensign Miller was sitting at the nearby security screen, belly-laughing, his eyes scrunched up. His feet were up on the desk, his hands were clasped behind his head, and his position was relaxed and informal; a very un-Starfleet pose.

"Ensign Miller."

The ensign's head snapped up, his eyes went wide, and he took the earpiece out of his ear. He leapt to his feet so fast that his chair toppled over and assumed a military position, his back straight, his gaze attentive.

"Captain!"

Jim raised an eyebrow. "At ease. I'm just here to talk with the prisoners. Any changes on their status?"

Miller's eyes dropped to the screen, and a small smile bubbled onto his lips. "Uhh, well… not really. Nothing important, at least. Smith and Tyler are singing a duet of a song that I've never heard before, and Harkniss is in the corner covering his hands with his ears and screaming. He may be crying. I don't know."

Jim blinked and pursed his lips. "I see… You are dismissed from your duties until further notice, ensign. I'll take it from here."

"Aww, but it was just getting good!"

"I'm sorry?"

"I mean, yes sir! Right away, Captain!" Miller sprinted from the room in a flash of red, narrowly colliding with the wall as he turned the corner.

Jim refrained from rolling his eyes and walked up to the cell's doors, which slid open as he approached it. He raised his hand to a pad on the wall to take down the forcefield, but he froze in place.

He could hear the prisoners.

"ALL THE SINGLE LADIES! ALL THE SINGLE LADIES!" yelled Smith.

"Something something club! Just broke up! Doing my own thing!" sang Rose, off key and boisterous. "Something something love! Love! I cried tears! For three good years! You can't be mad at me!"

"Cause if you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it! If you like it then you should put a ring on it!" Rose and Smith sang in horrendous unison.

"La la la! I can't hear you!" screamed Jack over the cacophony. He was, in fact, sitting in the corner, his face red and his hands trembling. He looked about ready to burst.

Jim raised his eyebrows. Smith and Rose were singing and dancing very… unique dance moves in the back of the cell, and Jack was continuing to scream from his corner nearest to the door, his hands pressed over his ears. Jim assumed this was to put as much distance between them as possible.

Jim pulled a seat up in front of their cell and crossed his arms, waiting for them to notice him.

"If you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it! If you like it you shoulda put a…" Smith's voice trailed off as he noticed Jim. Jack's head snapped up too, his eyes rimmed red, eyeing Jim with suspicion.

Rose, however, did not notice that she was suddenly the only one singing, and continued blissfully as Jim, Smith, and Jack watched her. If what she was doing could be considered singing, however. Her voice was comparable to a barking seal.

"Woah oh oh ohhhh woah oh-oh oh! Woah oh ohhhh!"

"Rose," Smith whispered.

"Woah oh ohhh oh-oh! Hey hey hey, hey hey hey!"

"Rose."

"Woah ohh-"

"Rose!"

"What? Oh…" her eyes landed on Jim, and she blushed crimson in embarrassment.

"Don't let me stop you," Jim said, waving his hand. "Please, continue."

"No! Stop them!" Jack pleaded, kneeling in front of him. He shook his finger disapprovingly at the duo. "Do not continue! Do not!"

"Well. I guess some people just can't appreciate art!" Rose sniffed, crossing her arms again.

"Well said," Smith agreed, and he crossed his arms as well.

They both gave Kirk mirrored pointed looks.

"So are you done?" Jim asked, his eyebrows raised and his lips tilted upwards in an amused expression.

"It would appear so," Smith muttered, kicking his feet at the ground. Jack smirked at his embarrassment.

"Good. We need to talk."

"At this point I don't care if you stuff me into an airlock and eject me into the cold heart of space!" Jack moaned, covering his eyes with his hands. "Just… just get me away from these two."

"Okay, so we're not going to do that."

"Then can I at least get my own cell? You have more than one holding cell? Right?"

"You're stuck here, Jack," Jim said sternly.

Jack groaned and slid onto the floor, splaying his limbs like a starfish.

"But like I said. We need to talk," said Jim. He keyed in a code on a pad by the cell door, and the forcefield flicked off. He stepped inside and it closed behind him.

"Listen, pal," said Rose, who was trying and failing to sound tough. "We aren't telling you anything!"

"Yeah!" Smith agreed, giving his best impression of stoicism as well. Jack sighed from the other side of the room. He rolled over to face the wall.

"Tell me what?" Jim asked innocently. "Are you referring to the fact that you're stuck in an alternate timeline? Or that you're time travelers? Or that he's a 900 year old alien? Or are you not going to tell me about the TARDIS, the vessel in which you travel through time and space? The one Smith failed a drivers test for, I mean."

The room went dead silent.

"How-"

"Mind reader!" screamed Smith, pointing a finger accusingly at him. "He's reading our minds!"

"Get out of my head!" Rose screeched. She smacked her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut.

"My mind is blank! You can't get in!" Smith yelled, his eyes squeezed shut as well. "My brain is empty!"

"That's the most believable thing you've said so far, Doctor," Jack sighed, sitting up and turning around. He watched with a bemused expression as Smith and Rose augmented each other's stupidity.

"Jack! Clear your brain! Mentally scream or something! He's reading our minds!" Rose hissed, her eyes shut. She was looking in the wrong direction to talk to him. Jack snorted.

He gave them another look before turning back to Kirk. "I was wondering whether or not the cell was bugged."

"Jack! Stop! He's gonna read your mind!"

"Was is just audio, or video too?"

"Jack!"

"Both," Jim shrugged.

"Jack! Stop talking to him!"

"You three have two options here," said Jim. "One, you can tell me who you are, where you came from, and what's happening, and we can try to help you, or you can stay silent and you'll be given truth serum. I recommend you choose the former, as things will get very unpleasant for you should we have to do this the hard way."

"Truth serum? What's truth serum?" Smith asked, his face lighting up.

Jim raised an eyebrow. "You're kidding, right?"

Smith shrugged.

"It's a serum that makes you tell the truth," Jack deadpanned, giving Smith a look that conveyed the message: seriously?

"How do you know that?" asked Smith, backing up a step.

"Common sense."

Smith's head snapped back to Kirk, his eyes unnervingly as wide and crazed. "Does it? Is that what it does? Make you tell the truth?"

"Yes…"

"Fantastic!" Smith cheered, pumping a fist in the air. "How does it work? Does it only work on humans? Or aliens, too?"

"Um…"

"Does it make you tell the truth only about certain things? Or everything? Can you resist it or are you just rambling uncontrollably? Is it injected into your bloodstream? Does it affect your heartbeat at all?"

"I don't-"

"Does it make you tell the truth, or just let others know if your lying? That is significantly less cool. Well? Does it?"

Jim rolled his eyes and slumped his shoulders. "It makes you tell the truth."

"Brilliant! Now, is it based in-"

Jim raised a hand, his jaw clenched. "Enough questions. Just pick. Are we going to do this the easy way, or the hard way?"

"Which option involves the truth serum again?"

"The hard way…"

"Oh, then we are definitely doing it the hard way," Smith smiled, looking to Rose and Jack for validation, but they just looked at him as if he'd lost his mind.

"Seriously?" Jim asked incredulously. It was the first time that anyone they needed to interrogate actually requested the truth serum.

"Yeah! I want to see what this truth serum thing is!"

"There's no need for that! I'll talk," Jack volunteered, raising his hand and leaping to his feet. Smith gave him a glare, reached up, and yanked Jack's hand down.

"No, we're doing it the hard way!"

"Easy way."

"Hard way!"

Jack twisted Smith's arm, his face contorted in frustration. "We are not doing this the hard way."

They did it the hard way.

Smith, however, preferred to refer to it as the 'fun' way.

Jim was starting to wonder if he should have Bones give the man a psychological examination.

"So how does it work exactly?" Smith asked enthusiastically. "Does it-"

"I don't know. I just know what it does, not how it works," Jim interrupted, rubbing his hands over his face.

"Okay. but can it-"

"Bones, please tell me you're almost finished," Kirk said hastily, looking at the ship's doctor with pleading eyes.

"Give me a minute," McCoy growled, preparing the vial of truth serum. He took the vial, measured its ingredients whilst looking at a PADD, and then placed the vial in a hypospray.

Kirk rocked on his feet, tapping his hands on his legs as Smith watched Doctor McCoy measure the ingredients. When will all of this be over? This was supposed to be a simple medical drop, and now it has turned into… Kirk's thoughts trailed off. I don't even know what is happening anymore. All I know is that I want a full night's sleep for once.

"Ready," said McCoy. He walked over Smith silently and pressed the hypospray into Smiths arm, causing him to jump a bit.

"Was that it? That was it, wasn't it?" Smith asked. His brow furrowed. "Huh. I was kinda expecting it to hurt."

"Now, Mr. Smith-" Jim started.

"Are you sure it's working?" Smith asked, cutting him off. "I didn't really feel anything. I don't think its working. Is it? Shouldn't my heartbeat be up or something? Because I feel fine."

Jim squeezed his eyes shut. "Yes, it is working."

"How do you know? Shouldn't you be checking my vitals? I'm really not sure that its working."

"Doctor McCoy is reading your vitals as we speak," Jim snapped. "Now, Mr. Smith-"

"It's Doctor, actually," he said smoothly. His eyes went wide and he gasped loudly. "It is working! Did you hear that! I corrected you! I said my name's Doctor! I did it again! Ha! That's brilliant! Bloody brilliant!"

"Your name… is Doctor?" Jim said slowly, his eyebrows arching up.

"Yeah! The one and only! Wait till I tell Rose! Rose! Rose!" Doctor turned in his restraints quickly, his eyes frantically searching the mostly empty med bay. "Oh, she's not here. That's fine! I'll tell her later! Rose is brilliant. I like telling her things. It's nice having a friend to say things to. And then she says things back, which is nice. She's gonna be super excited. Either excited or concerned. Probably a mixture of both. Wait till I tell her about the science behind this! I just gotta figure it out first!"

"I'm sorry, your name is Doctor who?"

"I suppose you can call me that if you'd like. I don't mind," Doctor said, talking so fast his words slurred. "Though my name is Doctor."

Jim and Bones traded a look. Bones shrugged. Jim looked back at the prisoner. "Your name is Doctor?"

"Yes, we've been over this quite a few times. You seem a little slow. Oh wow, that was mean. I didn't mean to say that. Sorry. But I did mean it."

"That's… that's fine," Jim shook his head, perplexed. "But I do need to know if-"

"I mean, as slow as you are, you do seem to run a very nice spaceship. In my opinion, that is. I have my own spaceship! She's called the TARDIS."

"Right. Why don't you tell us about this TAR-"

"And you must have gone through an extensive amount of schooling to become a captain. That's very impressive. I'm . I barely got through my days at the Academy back on Gallifrey. It was horribly boring. Felt like rubbing a cheesegrater across my head. Yuck. It was horrible."

"Gallifrey? What's Galli-"

"Oh, don't tell me you've never heard of it? It was wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Well, I mean, wonderful is a strong word. Some of the people were…. well, never mind. It certainly was beautiful. Beautiful it was, yes. Do you guys have Gallifrey in your universe? Or is it destroyed here, too? Oh, wow. Okay. That was a depressing thought. Yikes." Doctor made a face. Kirk realized his jaw was hanging open and shut it.

"Our universe?"

"I much prefer Earth," the Doctor continued, ignoring Kirk. "Over any other planet, really. It's gorgeous. Just gorgeous. With your skies, and your seas, and your grass, and your oceans, and your television, and your cars, and your-"

"Sir-"

"-And your animals, and your phones, and your games, and your sports, and the olympics, and your art… and your police boxes! Oh, I like police boxes! My spaceship looks like one! They're not really around anymore, are they? Not in this time, at least. Unless your dimension kept police boxes?"

"Sir-"

"And your food is cool, and your books, and your trees, and your people! I like humans. Humans are cool! You're so resilient and you never give up and you-"

"Sir!" Jim yelled. Doctor snapped out of his ramble and looked up at the Captain, his eyebrows raised.

"Will you please focus?" Jim hissed.

"Focus! Yes, I can focus! I'm good at focusing," Doctor insisted, nodding so hard some of his hair fell into his eyes. "Focus. Focus, focus, focus, focus…"

"Thank you. Now-"
"Speaking of focusing, have you ever heard of the weeping angels? Now those are creatures you really got to focus on."

Jim threw his hands into the air. "This is why I hate truth serum!"

"This guy is completely bonkers," Bones muttered. A small smile encroached the corners of his mouth, however.

"I get that a lot, yeah," Doctor smiled.

"Bones, is there anything we can give him to keep his focus on one topic at a time?" Jim asked.

"Nope. That's how truth serum works. You know that," Bones grunted, his jaw clenched. He pounded his fist against his medical tricorder a couple times. "This thing must be on the fritz… it's picking up on two heartbeats."

"Oh, no, it's perfectly fine! I just have two hearts!" Doctor said, chipper.

Jim blinked. "What?"

"It works perfectly fine?" Doctor said, his brow furrowing. "I mean, is that really that surprising? Your entire ship has top of the line technology! I'd doubt that anything-"

"No, you idiot! He was talking about you saying you have two hearts," McCoy snapped, fishing a stethoscope out of a cabinet.

"Ohhh. That… yeah." Doctor nodded affirmingly. "I have two hearts."

"Yes. You said that. Would you please elaborate?" Jim asked slowly, hoping upon hope that the Doctor wouldn't ramble. Again.

"Oh, well, I'm not a human. Obviously. I'm a Time Lord! The last of my kind, actually. I'm all alone…" he said mournfully. "And, wow. Just wow. That got super dark again. And depressing. I'd like to stop saying dark and depressing things. They are making me sad."

"Okay…" Jim said, pursing his lips. "Why don't you tell us about this spaceship you have… The TARDIS?"

"Oh, she's beautiful. Travels through time and space. And she looks like a police box."

"You mentioned that. What else can you tell us-"

"She's the last of her kind. Like me. We were all that survived Gallifrey after the time war…" said Doctor. He paused for a minute, and his expression grew somber. "Okay. More sad thoughts. I thought I said I'd like to stop talking about these things."

"Fine. Fine!" Jim pinched the bridge of his nose. "Why don't you tell us about your friends, then?"

The Doctor's eyes lit up. "Rose? Rose? I like talking about Rose. I like talking to her too. She understands me. Rose is the best. She's the kindest person I've ever met. So sweet and compassionate to everyone she meets. She's just the best. I saved her life once, a long time ago. That's how we met! She's saved my life many times since then. There was this one time-"

"What about your other companion. Mr. Harkniss?"

"Oh. Jack." Doctor shrugged, his face neutral. "I dunno. He's cool, I guess. He's been a bit grouchy lately. He's probably just upset that we're stuck in this alternate universe, and since the TARDIS broke down and the only way we could fix her was to dress up in these costumes and steal- I mean borrow - the necessary equipment from your ship, he's been under quite a bit of pressure. But he says he works well under pressure. But I don't really believe him. And then there's the odd matter of him running into a pole? I mean, if you ask me-"

"I'm sorry, could you go back to the beginning?" Jim asked. Beside him, McCoy's mouth was agape, and his fingers frozen on the stethoscope gripped in his hands.

"The beginning?" Doctor said, sounding surprised. "Uh. I mean, I guess I could. How far back are we talking here? If I start at the very beginning I'm going to have to tell you about billions of years of planets forming and civilizations and alien life forms and-"

"No! The beginning of what we were just talking about," Jim sighed.

"Oh…." Doctor said, his brow furrowed. Suddenly his eyes lit up again. "Oh! You mean Rose? I can talk about Rose! I like-"

"No," Jim interjected. The Doctor pretended not to hear him, and droned on and on about Rose.

"He does have two hearts," McCoy said, pressing the stethoscope against the Doctor's chest. Doctor didn't even react but kept rambling on about Rose enthusiastically.

"Now is not the time, Bones."

"And look at his cells!" McCoy exclaimed, staring at the readings on his tricorder. "They're in a constant state of rapid cellular regeneration."

"I don't know what that means," Jim sighed, rubbing his temples.

With the Doctor rambling on about his companion and Bones spouting out scientific facts that made no sense, he was more than relieved when the communicator on his belt suddenly chirped.

He smiled in relief and flipped open his communicator.

"This is Kirk."

"Captain," said Spock in his even, low voice. "the Klingons are here."