Silence, as she found out, was not the best policy when you end up in a scenario where you are aware of all the things that will go wrong. But she still ambled on, trying her best to not roll her eyes at the cheeriness—albeit a bit forced— of the Doctor and Rose. She could tell the dude had other thoughts on his mind, especially since his sentences kept trailing off like he were a confused elderly man. Which, she frowns, he actually is.

"Doctor?" Rose asks, for the last time, when he stops himself in mid-sentence while saying something about hospitals giving him the creeps. It's kinda creepy in itself. James marvels at the extent of her impact on the world, hands stuffed in her hoodie pocket, standing behind the Dynamic Duo in the Cat Hospital lobby. She remembers vague details about this episode, namely the Cat Nuns being evil, but the fact that her existence will surely change some of the storyline is pretty cool. Or devastating, if she causes them to lose to evil.

"Right. Sorry," he mutters, shaking himself subtly, and Rose gasps at one of the Cat Nuns that walk by, missing his movement.

"They're cats!"

"Now, don't stare. Think what you look like to them, all pink and yellow." He strides forward to catch an elevator by the side of the reception, and Rose rushes to follow him. James sighs deeply, and freezes when she realizes if she doesn't get into the life with the Doctor, she will—if her memory's right—end up in the basement with the Skin Lady, and possibly derail the plot even further by letting her body get taken over. She can't let that happen. She doesn't even want to be here. The elevator closes in front of the two of them, and she shakes her head, knowing she needed to do it again. She had to—

"They're cats!" James catches herself just in time, stepping forward to keep her momentum. She almost grins. Apparently, the Time Traveling thing worked on command. Now that's one thing she'll miss if she goes back to her world.

When, she corrects, blinking. When she goes back.

"Now, don't stare. Think what you look—" James breaks off in a jog, ignoring the deja-vu that's permeated into every sound, every action. The Doctor catches up to her, by himself, doing that staring thing again, and the doors slide shut, cutting off Rose's hurried "Hold on!"

"Ward 26," James says. "Take the other one, Rose."

"Sure," she can hear her grumbling. "No one has any manners, do they?" That's definitely new.

James leans back against the wall, wishing for the thousandth time that she had proper shoes for the occasion, and—

"Right." The Doctor turns to her, coat swishing, the sonic screwdriver in his hand. He looks determined, for some reason, which makes her stand straighter. That does nothing, because he's a head taller at the very least. He waves the stick over her like a metal detector. Fittingly, the thing does not beep, and his expression's like she shot his firstborn in front of him.

She pushes him a bit away from her with a finger to his chest. "Uh, what are you doing?"

"This—this can't be."

James scowls. "Elaborate?"

"You're not creating any paradoxes." He shakes his head. "Maybe the sonic's wonky." He waves it again, and she stands there, feeling violated. Nothing happens.

"Isn't that a good thing? That I'm not creating paradoxes?" She tries, and he scoffs a laughter.

"After what you've done? The Glitches?" His voice is surprisingly dark, and she opens her mouth when a robotic-sounding woman intones above them, "Commence stage one disinfection."

Water sprays from the ceiling and she flinches forward, even though she knew it was coming. They're drenched, quick enough, then it's some kind of weird powder that she coughs her way through. The Doctor seems completely unaffected, the jerk, and stays looking at her like she's a Schrodinger's box. Like he could tell if the cat's dead or alive, if he just glares hard enough. It's ridiculous, but she realizes she's holding onto his coat sleeve when the blast of hot air ends.

"Finally," she groans when the door opens, snatching her hand back. "What was that about glitches?"

He turns coolly and steps out. She nods slowly. "Great explanation."

James follows the alien away from what she recognizes as probably the original path, the way the Doctor would have taken if he had been alone. All the walls are sickly white, giving her mental hospital vibes. She doesn't like it, but the occasional Cat Nuns that walk by are slightly more terrifying to look at. It's just eerie. She doesn't want to be an alienphobe, but—

The Doctor slams the door shut behind him and she realizes they're in an isolated room, still white and still sickly, but empty. She squints. "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm picking up very sketchy vibes."

"You told me to tell you if I think I know something about how," he pauses. "you are."

"...How I am?" Confused, she thinks, but doesn't admit it.

He steps forward. She thinks that's one of his idiosyncrasies, how he gets closer and closer as he emerges himself in any mystery of a person. "How you are who you are."

Her face is probably blank. "I really don't think you have to be that vague about it, but yeah. I did tell you to tell me if you had any theories."

The Doctor nods. "You Glitch. You Time-Glitch. The time traveling you're doing for minutes at a time. It's never been heard of, or seen—"

"Wait, wait, hang on." She steps back, jarred. "You could see what I was doing? The whole thing?"

"You're diverging from the original timeline. You're rewriting Time," he continues with no regards to how her jaw is on the floor, lost in his own thoughts. "And that's not something a Time Sensitive does. That's Time Lord stuff." She feels like she's been caught with a hand down the candy jar, or something a hundred times worse. So that means he went through the conversation on the TARDIS three times, just like she did, and he didn't say anything. The fucking jerk.

"But you're not a Time Lord. And on the TARDIS, that was the first time you did it. I felt ripples in Time itself," he mutters, apparently working something out. She wants to punch his fucking face. "Which means..." his eyes focus back on her face with a surprising intensity, and she wants to like, escape. She doesn't want to be here listening to his BS—

—and they're back in the elevator, and she curses as the water hits her face again, slipping on the marvel floor. The Doctor catches her with his usual flourish of dramatics, hands on her arms.

"Running won't help." His voice is a low murmur in her ears. She shoves him, staggering to the side as they're laundered again. She knows it won't help. She's just trying to buy some time to actually think, but she keeps getting hit in the face by uncomfortable truths or ice cold water. She doesn't know which is worse.

The doors slide open, once more. "James." Her names sounds off, coming from him. Maybe it's the accent. "I like impossible. Because nothing ever is, really." He peers at her, again with that determined jerkish look that used to be so charming to her. And, maybe, still is. "And I have a theory. Would you like to test it?"

She doesn't even have to think about it. "Yeah," she says, enthralled with his gaze, and then his hands are coming up and she flinches involuntarily, freezing when he cups her face, thumbs at her temples. They take in a sharp breath at the same time.

She shivers, her thoughts reeling. She knows the contact is only one-dimensional, just skin on skin, but it feels infinitely more than that. Like he's reached into her chest and scooped out what makes her her. Something ignites in her brain and the pull of it almost hurts, a small voice whispering remember this, remember it, remember him, remember—

He jerks away like he's been electrocuted. She almost follows, but can't, not when she sees he's crying.

She's missing something. No, she's missing a lot. It's like the touch set some part of her mind loose, and there's something gone, taken from her.

It's Time.