When she leaves the weirdly enormous restroom, the lamp on the left wall of the hallway lights up with a hypnotizing blue. She blinks, looks around as if something's going to jump out at her, and makes her move, stepping carefully closer to the lamp. The next one lights up.

She can't help but smile, a little helplessly. Some part of her is squealing with glee. She knows that she is literally on a spaceship/time machine, but that seems oddly normal. But automatic lamps, telling her where to go? Fricking cool.

She walks for about five minutes, passing countless doors placed in the nooks and the curves of the never-ending hallway. The lamp orders(? suggests?) her to turn left and she watches as the corridor widens out until she's in the Console Room, ceiling so far above her, and she faces Rose. And the Doctor.

Her slippers patter against the ground, the sound uncomfortably loud. Her feet are cold.

"Hi again," Rose says, leaning against one of the steel rails. She looks at place in the TARDIS, with the Doctor next to her. James remembers that they're not really together together yet, but still, it's just a matter of time. She smiles at the blonde, turns to the Doctor with an admittedly harsher look.

"Sacramento," she states. "Well, some place near that vicinity will be nice."

The Doctor scowls, like he doesn't understand what she's saying. She knows perfectly well he does, but just shoves her hands inside her hoodie and stares coldly. "Aren't you dropping me off?"

"I can't," he says slowly. "I need to know if—"

James barks out a laugh. "I told you, for fuck's sake. I'm not time-sensitive, I'm—"

There's a flash and her vision goes white, so white it's almost transparent, and then she stumbles over her own feet. She was walking. No, she wasn't walking, she was standing, but then she was walking. She blinks. She's back in the hallway, with the blue lamp shining over her head.

"What, the fuck?" She mutters. Her knee throbs. But, more pointedly, her hands tingle. She looks down and thinks she saw light. But as fast as she could think that, the spark's gone.

James stands, for a lack of better things to do. She doesn't know how she teleported, whether the TARDIS had anything to do with it, whether the Doctor had anything to do with it. Oh, she was going to kill that fucking guy. How was this fair? Doctor Who was supposed to be fun and beautiful. Not this shitmix of danger and condescending aliens.

She strides back around the same corner, right into the Console Room. Rose is still leaning against the rails, relaxed.

"Hi again."

James stops and stares at her. Hi again? Hi, again? "What?"

Rose frowns. "What do you mean, what?"

"I just—" She points back to the hallway, incredulous. "You didn't see?"

"...What are you talking about?"

James turns towards the Doctor, but he's also staring at her like she's gone a little bit nuts. This fucking world. She opens her mouth to explain, but the Doctor steps in.

"I'm sorry, but you're going to have to stay with us for a while."

"No." She says simply, and looks at the door. "Where are we?"

"You have to," he replies, and it's a dry fucking conversation. None of that Doctor-y charm. "Rose, I'm sorry, but she's coming along whether she likes it or not. We can still go on adventures—"

"Whether I like it or not?" James spits. Punching him seems like a viable option. He's pushing all her buttons, being passive aggressive, condescending, treating her like she's a fucking child, etc. She considers what's just happened, with the flash of light and teleportation, and not knowing things has always pissed her off. She doesn't want to stand here and listen to him tell her what to do. She wants violence. Petty, childish violence.

"Yes," he snaps back. "I'm not blind. I know you don't understand what's—"

"I don't understand?" She repeats, sounding like a broken record. He sighs.

"You don't know what you're dealing with."

She just laughs. Rose winces. "Doctor," the girl starts, wary, and James cuts her off.

"I clearly know more than you do," she says, feeling her mind just glaze over with the indignation. "Shouldn't you know better than to invite more random girls on to your wreck of a ship? You should know this. People die. And their lives get ruined. And maybe this hasn't happened yet, but Rose—" She stutters, wondering vaguely if she's gone too far. His face is dark. She crosses her arms. "But nothing ever has consequences here, so shut the fuck up. I'm gonna leave."

James stares at the door in the heady silence. She could probably make it if she ran, but she doesn't know where she's going to step out to. For all she knew, they could be floating in open space right then. She's not that out of her mind. But her chest feels too tight, as if she was in one of those squash courts at school she couldn't breathe in, or a stuffy elevator with one too many people. She can't stay locked in. She's going to die. All alone, in this world that wasn't even hers.

"I told you what the Council would do," the Time Lord says. She thinks it's meant to be a threat.

"I don't think Rose would like that," she says, flashing the girl a cold smile. She looks, frankly, shocked, but James doesn't have time to think about that at all because the Doctor is all of a sudden stalking forward with the screwdriver in one hand like it's a weapon.

"Think twice, before threatening her. I can do so much more than just—"

He stops himself just in time. She listens to her heart hammer.

"Doctor," Rose repeats, voice off a bit, and this time he listens. "Leave her alone."

He leans away, looking back at the girl standing stiffly. She doesn't seem so relaxed now.

"Rose, you don't understand—"

"You keep saying that," she interrupts, almost defiant. "Well, then, make us understand."


They'd gone and started whispering to each other. James stands, shaking her leg against the console. She really hadn't been threatening Rose. It's just the truth, that the girl's too kind to watch as her precious Doctor killed a human. As the seconds fly by, she hates this mess more. No adventure, no soap opera, just distrust and anger.

12 year old her would be so devastated. She still remembers the nights she spent up, feet up on the desk, watching the Doctor run through whatever hallway with whoever random girl who used to be around. Isn't it just ironic that she ends up here just as soon as she gets a grip on reality? She was looking forward to finishing her finals and going to University. But now she's here, and the Doctor probably hates her—not that she cares, well, she does, just a bit—, and if paradoxes existed they would be laughing at her face.

She wishes she could do this again, rewind and play back, and she rolls her eyes, because she doesn't want to delve that low into things, and—

Flash. She falls, and she was walking but she wasn't and fuck she's back in the hallway. Her knee that she fell on, again, hurts like hell. Once is a coincidence, twice is a...something she can't remember. But there's definitely something wrong, here, because you don't just get to teleport when you—

Oh shit. This wasn't teleportation. Of course, in a show that deals specifically with time traveling? Of-fucking-course this wasn't teleportation.

She stands gruffly, somehow annoyed and elated at the same time, and walks slowly around the same fucking corner, to face the same fucking people, and hears Rose say "Hi again.", again.

James nods.

There's a silence.

"How long is it going to take for me to prove I'm not a threat?" She asks, and the Doctor's face softens immediately.

"Not long," he says, almost like a promise that she knows he's going to break. But there aren't a lot of options. If she keep her head down and try to figure out how to get back, maybe she can work something out. She's not optimistic, but it's better than dying at the hands of your 12-year-old self's crush.

"Okay," she answers simply, reluctant to speak further alas they simply yell at each other again, and the Doctor looks at her probingly for a few more moments before turning away. He claps, excitedly, standing before the console.

"So, where do you want to—"

"So she's coming along, is it?" Rose is still watching her, hands on her hips. "I don't understand how she knew those things if she's not an alien." Her nose is scrunched up in deep thought. It's very cute. "Are you from the future?"

"Uh," James doesn't know the answer to that. "In a sense, yeah."

"Oh, wow. How did you get here?"

She kind of laughs. "I wish I knew."

Rose is definitely about to ask her what when the Doctor interrupts, looking harried that she was stealing his thunder. Or annoyed that he didn't ask those questions first. "So you have no memory before you met Rose?"

She blinks. "I know who I am. I just...don't know how I ended up there."

He stares at her with a gaze a bit too scientific for her liking, like he's dissecting her brain piece by piece. Maybe he knows something about her predicament? Has random people just dropped into Doctor Who before? It was entirely possible he had completely the wrong idea about her, but the hope was better than nothing.

"If you figure something out," she says. "tell me. I want to get out of here as much as you want me out of here."

"We're not in a rush," he replies absentmindedly, and James snorts.

"Well, I hope you are."

With her new symptom of turning back time occupying her mind, she was too confused to even care about the shit that went on beside her as the Doctor and Rose spoke enthusiastically vaguely familiar lines and the TARDIS rattled with movement. When the doors opened and James stepped out, under the watchful gaze of the Doctor, the sight was familiar.

"It's the year five billion and twenty three. We're in the galaxy M87, and this?" The Doctor grins charmingly, the glass she steps on brushing her bare feet in her sandals. "This is New Earth."