Luckily for Jane, the Doctor saw the same thing she did (only it was less blurry, as he had 20/20 vision) at least a minute before. In a second, he was dashing forward, grabbing Jane's huge, heavy black rucksack and pulling it backwards. The next thing they knew, they were lying on their backs in the brush off the side of the road. At least, the Doctor was on his back. Jane, like a turtle flipped over on its shell, was lying on top of her rucksack, flailing frantically to get back on her feet.

Out of breath, the Doctor stayed down for a minute, then looked over at Jane. When he saw her fighting to get up, or at least get the rucksack off, he couldn't help but laugh.

Jane knew three things: she was almost hit by a truck just now, someone pulled her out of the way via her rucksack (which now refused to come off); and now someone was laughing at her. She looked to her left.

To her astonishment, there lay the Doctor, cracking up. At her. Were she not so full of WTF-ery, she probably would've shouted at him and then laughed herself. But she just couldn't handle anything more at that point. With a cry of frustration, she kicked the air and then lay still, tears starting to pour down her cheeks once more. (And just as she was pulling herself together, too.)

Well, that stopped him. He sat up, dusted himself off, then got to his feet. 'I'm sorry,' he said, forcing his laughter to a stop. 'That wasn't very nice, I suppose.'

Offering Jane his hand, he pulled her up. The second she was on her feet, she angrily threw her rucksack to the ground.

'Hey, there's no need to-' the Doctor started to make a joke, but was shocked into silence as Jane leaned forward and thumped her head onto his chest, tears still running down her face and sniffing every now and then.

Slowly, he wrapped his arms around her, awkwardly trying to comfort the crying girl. 'What's the matter?' the Doctor asked. 'Did something happen? You seem a bit… er… distressed.'

'It's just…' Jane leaned back, but still looked at her feet. She swallowed. 'Everything, and… everything is just so screwed up! And it's all so…' She tried to think of words, but none really came.

The Doctor looked around at all the cars rushing past. As he looked, one or two began to slow down, and that was the last thing he needed. He looked back at the TARDIS, but before he could even think, he and Jane were suddenly knocked back down by a tremendous earthquake.

Jane screamed. She'd only ever been in one earthquake, but when it happened, she didn't even feel it. She was so young she probably wouldn't have remembered what it felt like even if she had felt it. So this was scary. This was really, really scary. Everything was moving, not stopping. Jane could hear the Doctor shouting in surprise, as well. And she was even more scared.

Just as suddenly as it had begun, everything stopped. Terrified and dizzy as hell, Jane stayed on the ground where she'd been tossed around, trying to regain a sense of stability. The Doctor, however, was right back on his feet, looking around.

The air was now completely silent with no cars in sight. Several trees had fallen in the surrounding woods, and he realized how lucky they were that none had fallen on them. Houses he could see were missing shingles, windows were shattered and gutters were hanging off. The power lines had wilted, though not fallen over or broken; another lucky thing.

When Jane finally looked up, she saw the Doctor do something odd: he licked his finger and held it up in the air. 'That's what you're worried about?' she exclaimed, slowly standing up. 'The wind?'

'I'm not checking the wind,' he said as if she were a complete idiot. He jumped up and down a few times, then got down on the ground and put his ear to the pavement, listening. 'Something feels wrong, something feels very wrong…'

'Wrong? How?' Jane wiped her cheeks, then picked up her rucksack and slung one of the straps over her shoulder.

The Doctor stood back up and looked around, listening again. Then, abruptly, he turned around. Grabbing Jane's hand, he began walking very quickly back into the woods toward the TARDIS. 'That wasn't a natural earthquake. They're prevalent in your area, yes?'

Jane let herself be towed by him. 'Well, not really. The last one was about ten years ago, but we are on what they call the "Ring of Fire"; all those volcanoes around the Pacific.'

He let go for a moment to hop over a small tree that had fallen. 'Yeah, thought so. No, that was definitely caused by something, and I think there's going to be another one.'

'Good gorram,' the high schooler muttered under her breath, climbing over the log. The bottom of her stomach dropped out in fear.

A rumble passed under their feet. The two stopped. Worriedly, the Doctor looked up at the surrounding trees. 'It's starting.'

Jane followed his gaze, seeing nothing but the tops of trees and the pale, wintry sky. She waited for him to say something.

'Yeah… starting. Come on!' The Doctor was running towards the TARDIS now, but Jane was still right behind him.

She and the Doctor dashed into his blue box, and at first she was so preoccupied with the quake that she hadn't quite noticed some of its more unique properties. Stepping inside, she saw a large room lit by a blue-ish light emanating from a large cylinder in the middle of the room and wall panels that were lit up. Yet many were dark, and the light from the cylinder was dim, making it relatively dark inside. She could see, however, the great mess that was in there; coral-like structures crumbling or with pieces already fallen off, bits of wire hanging loose from the ceiling and sparks leaping from open parts of the console that the cylinder jutted from. 'Jeez Louise, it's a mess in here!' Jane exclaimed. 'What did you do, have the Meteor State University students over for a party?'

The Doctor laughed. 'Ah, no. It was more of a crash-landing, really.' He hopped over a fallen pillar and started picking his way over to the console.

'Oh.' Jane nodded knowingly until it dawned on her exactly what he'd said. And then she started to look around. 'Hold on a second… crash landing?' She gazed around the room, her eyes wide, then looked over at the Doctor. Even with her bad eyes, there was enough bigger-on-the-inside-ness for her to be astonished. 'This is… it's a… so that means you're a…'

After examining everything, she looked back at the man standing at the console, who had stopped his fiddling and was watching her with a bemused curiosity. But rather than shock or confusion or amazement or any of the various other expressions he'd seen on humans (and other life forms') faces when they first encountered his TARDIS, the look on Jane's face was one of pure excitement. All previous thoughts had completely flown from her mind, and she was grinning.

'This is a spaceship,' Jane stated questioningly, taking a step forward.

'Yes,' the Doctor answered.

'And it's bigger inside.' Another step.

'Obviously.'

She paused. 'Why does it look like a little blue box? Like, I mean, it isn't so little, it's bigger than me, but compared to a spaceship…'

The Doctor smiled and shrugged, turning back to the console which was still spitting out sparks. 'Long story.'

'Well, anyway, I suppose that's beside the point.' Jane took another step forward. 'You can travel in space?'

'Time, too,' the Doctor answered, stumbling over some debris. 'You seem a bit excited.'

'Am I freaking ever!' Jane exclaimed shrilly. 'You are talking to one of the biggest science fiction buffs to ever grace the sidewalks of Firefly City, plus I love history. I am a huge science fiction fan- "Door CH-Two", "Star Trek", "Firefly"- you name it, I love it. And, oh, there are so many places in history I should just love to go see- the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace, an Enlightenment-era salon… dinosaurs!' She took in a deep breath, trying to calm herself down. She looked up at the Doctor. 'You, my friend, are lucky.'

He laughed. 'I rather suppose I am. It certainly is an adventure.' The Doctor proudly patted the console, only to have a burst of smoke emerge from that part. He quickly pulled his hand back, looking alarmed.

Jane snickered, but the two fell into a rather awkward silence as she hesitated to ask to go somewhere with him and he hesitated to offer her a trip. Finally, it was the Doctor who spoke.

'I would offer to take you someplace,' he began. 'But if you hadn't noticed…'

'Your ship looks like it's gonna fall in on us any second,' Jane noted.

'Exactly. I'm rather, er… grounded, for the time being. I mean, the least I could do is give you a thank-you trip, and-'

'Hey, hey, hey!' Jane held up a hand to stop him. 'You don't owe me a single thing! Honestly, it was my… pleasure.'

But even for her generosity, Jane couldn't turn down the possibility of a trip in time or space. 'Buuuuut…'

She threw her rucksack off her shoulder and tore into it, ripping a scrap of paper from the thick binder inside. After retrieving a pencil from the front pouch, she scribbled quite a lot on it, then handed it to the Doctor.

'At the end of March, in three months' time, I'm going to be in my school's musical. Come see it. Your ship should be repaired by then, right? Plus the show is really funny and the music is great… all of it is just fantastic.'

'Oh, the TARDIS should be fine by then,' the Doctor said, taking the paper. He glanced at it and saw that there were numerous dates, along with a time and a place, written on it. Then he folded it up and stuck it in his pocket.

Jane waited a moment, searching the Doctor's face. She gave him time to say "I'll be sure to come" or some such thing, but the desired remark never surfaced.

'So…' Not wanting to leave, she turned back to the real subject at hand. 'Earthquake?'

'First I have a question: Why were you crying?'

'Excuse me?' Jane returned not expecting him to totally deflect what she'd said.

'Why were you crying?' he repeated.

'Ah, ha, well…' she laughed, embarrassed, and wiped her left eye again, just because. 'I, um… oh, it was a purely trivial reason. Totally… does not matter. I mean, I shouldn't have been crying at all, there was no good reason. I have no right to cry, as there are ridiculous numbers of less fortunate people in this world-'

'Why were you crying?'

Jane looked at the Doctor a long time. Finally she sighed and turned around, wandering down to the railing and leaning against it.

'I'm a good student. I'm in honours classes, I always do 98% of my homework, and have all As or A minuses. When other students come in late for no reason, or skip, or ignore the rules by using their electronics in class, or something like that, I don't understand it. I don't get how they can't stand being at school, how they despise learning. I love school and knowing new things, and everything that goes with it. I'm a good student.

'But lately I've been having the worst time; I've been falling asleep in class every day. It sounds trivial, and it was at first. But it's been screwing me. I don't try to fall asleep- the exact opposite of it, really. But I just can't help it.

'I have no idea what's going on in several of my classes. I'm behind on homework and projects and my grades are dangerously low. I'm never not exhausted and nauseous. But I get enough sleep at night. I go to bed at 9.3o. 9.3o! No one my age goes to bed at 9.3o, and I'm always asleep right away, bam! But… it isn't helping. I've seen a doctor- a medical one, y'know- and supposedly there's nothing wrong with me, and yet… I just don't know,' she finished miserably.

The Doctor frowned. 'That's terrible. I'm so sorry.'

'Yeah, me, too,' Jane scoffed. 'Though it's not like you can-'

'Maybe I can help you,' the Doctor said distractedly, walking around the console.

Jane looked up. 'No joke? But how can you-'

'I'm the Doctor, aren't I?' he began with a grin.

'So you've told me.'

'Well, aside from using my wonderful TARDIS that I am oh-so-lucky to have for, er, sightseeing, I tend to end up helping people out with weird stuff that goes on, and I think this qualifies.'

'Wow. Uh, really? You mean, my falling asleep in class is all sci-fi?'

The Doctor whacked a spot on the TARDIS console with a rubber mallet. 'Could be.'

'Holy pants, that's incredible.' She took her coat off and threw it over her rucksack, then approached the console. 'Tobi's never gonna believe me. I'm fairly certain she already thinks I'm crazy just cos of yesterday, but this…'

'Now.' The Doctor paused and turned to her. 'How long have you been having this problem?'

Jane thought about it. 'Early on in the summer, actually. Like, early July? By about three in the afternoon, I was always incredibly tired, and would go take an hour's nap or so. But then it continued into the school year. Second week of school, I fell asleep in second-period math. When I woke up, I thought, "Hey, that's weird," and nothing more. But ever since then…'

'I haven't been in Firefly City long, but I've noticed that there's something in the air, something just… different from Earth normally. This is Earth, right?'

'Last time I checked,' she chuckled.

'Right. So there's something odd about, I just can't tell what. When I got back to the TARDIS I did a…' He tried to think of adjectives. '…search-type thing, and-'

'So are you an alien, then? Or, not from Earth, or however you want to put it?' Jane asked suddenly.

The Doctor looked up at her. 'Yes. Why?' he asked curiously.

She shrugged. 'I dunno. You've got a space-time ship, I figure you're either an "alien" or from the future. But you talked about Earth like you know about other planets, too. I just wondered. Sorry to interrupt, it only just dawned on me.'

'Yeah, no, I am. An "alien", I mean.' For the first time, the Doctor stopped not because he was trying to think, but because he didn't know if he wanted to go on. He stood up from where he had been bending to look at a screen on the console and looked down at Jane. 'I'm from a planet… where they had time-and-space machines. But, um… it's complicated.'

Jane was quiet, watching him. She didn't say anything, just put her hand on his arm, as comfort. She smiled for him. He smiled back.

'But anyway!' he began, changing the subject with a clap of his hands. 'Where were we?'

A second of thought and Jane remembered- 'You did a search-type thing?'

'Ah. Right. Well, it showed massive amounts of energy coming from somewhere in the city.' Though the Doctor had again been looking at the screen, now he turned to Jane. 'Foreign energy.'

'And I'm guessing we're not talking "made in China" foreign?'

The Doctor shook his head.

She bent down and looked closely at the screen, squinting to try and see better, but she couldn't decipher any of the circles and hexagons dancing about. 'And then there was the earthquake.'

'Yes, then there was the earthquake. It was the energy that caused it, or so I think. But like I said, it's just impossible to tell.' He tried to move around to another screen, but tripped over another piece of broken pillar. With a cry of frustration, he picked it up and chucked it over the railing.

'Y-you… but it… How did you pick that up? It looks so firm, so heavy.'

'This coral is part organic, so it's not too heavy,' the Doctor explained, not really paying attention to her. 'The whole TARDIS is. And it needs to start re-forming soon, this is getting ridiculous.'

'You mean it's… alive?' she asked, somewhat disbelievingly. As if in response, the coral began to glow faintly. Soon all the pillars, whether it was a chunk lying on the floor or still standing, was giving off a minor phosphorescence, and the room was a little brighter.

The Doctor looked up and saw the coral glowing. When he looked over at Jane, she was grinning again, unable to stop. 'Aw, man, that is just too cool,' the girl said, shaking her head.

'It is, isn't it?' he agreed, as if only just noticing it. He opened his mouth to say something when another earthquake hit. And this one hit even harder, because it affected the inside of the TARDIS.

As before, the Doctor and Jane were thrown to the ground. The already beat-up TARDIS began to react even worse than before, sparks flying everywhere, the little fires lighting back up. More things began to fall, and through the shaking its two inhabitants had to duck and dodge.

All at once, Jane's hand felt hot, and she looked up.

There was a small door underneath the console, loose and hanging on one hinge. She couldn't see anything inside of it but a bright, golden glow. 'What on Earth…?' she managed to think.

The shaking grew even worse, jerking about harder and harder. The door fell off and the glow grew brighter. Jane squinted, trying to see beyond it.

And then it hit her.

0-0

When I say "it hit her", I mean it literally hit her. Just for clarification, there.

Woo-hoo! Longest one yet, innit? And Chapter Ten! This took two days! Okay, that's a lie. I just started to work on it last night and only finished it today. Because I basically rewrote everything from the truck bit on. There was no earthquake before, it was some silly ridiculous thing. Lots of background, the Doctor inadvertently filling Jane in on the history of "Doctor Who". I cut most of it out. Did keep the part with the glowing pillars, though, cos I thought that was cool.

…Yeah, I'm a complete idiot, I know.

Um, umumumumum… Thank you all for the wonderful reviews, as per usual! I couldn't do it without you guys, you light up my days. Sorry for being such a whinge-y whiner the other day, it was a terrible night. We really are lucky to have the snow, and these days off actually kind of force me to do work for here and dA, which I do so I don't go mad. Should do it more often.

Anyway. Thanks again, lads, lassies, and those of you who have yet to make up your minds. Have a lovely Thanksgiving if you're American, and if you aren't, have a lovely 25 November! XD And happy Doctor Who Day! That was yesterday, if you didn't know!

Haha, yes.