The Doctor's question caused Leanne to take a step back.
She liked her home. She liked her family. She liked video games. And, most of all, she LIKED 'routine.' When things changed too much... Well, people left her alone.
Shaking her head suddenly, she tried unsuccessfully to rid the thought from her mind. The best Leanne could do was to push it to a far corner and ignore it, which she did while walking towards the blue box containing the mad man. After all, she couldn't stay scared forever.
The Doctor was leaning on the railing, a large grin on his face, as the door opened slowly. Leanne walked into the TARDIS and immediately stopped her determined walk, her face morphing into a look of pure shock.
What the hell is this?
Suddenly and quite without warning her face erupted into a big smile and she broke into a rather clumsy run and she dashed about the inside. "Geeze!" she yelled, her face still red from being upset, but it had a slight glow now. "It's... Oh, WOW. It's so big in here!"
The Doctor was not expecting that reaction at all. "Normally people freak out when they see this; normally they say 'It's bigger on the inside than the outside' and then run around a bit waving their arms," he muttered to himself. That was his favorite part when he introduced someone to the interior of the TARDIS, but Leanne seemed to be taking it in stride. Well, more in a run. "So, you think aliens are weird but not my ship?" he asked her, puzzled.
"I didn't say this wasn't weird!" Leanne screeched to a halt from her running around. "I just think it's amazing. Those aliens were not so amazing; they were short and had guns and... Wait. You mean they really were aliens? Not just midgets in Halloween get ups?" She paused for a second seeming in deep thought... then pointed at The Doctor with an almost maniacal look in her eyes, and burst out, "ARE YOU AN ALIEN?"
"Erm, yes... I am," said the Doctor, fiddling with some wires while keeping an eye on the girl in case she suddenly passed out from hyperventilation. "And, this is my ship. Welcome—" He bowed with a flourish "—to the TARDIS. That stands for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space. Now can you pass me that thing over there, the one that looks like a gas mask?"
"I knew it!" Leanne exclaimed with glee. "Aliens are real, we're not alone in the universe and those jerks who told me I was just watching too much Star Trek can go suck it! Ha!" She paused mid-rant to grab the item the Doctor requested. "Uhhh… here ya go. What is it?"
"Well, Star Trek does have quite a few physical accuracies... Erm, anyways, this is a scent analyzer. Technically called a Molecular Bio-Hormonal Air Analyzer, though saying that would be like saying TARDIS in non-acronym form every time."
He paused for a second to let Leanne absorb his drabble and then continued on. "Those aliens reeked because of their chemical composition. Yet it's not strong enough that humans can smell them, so we are probably going to need a high setting." The Doctor turned a blue dial on the left side of the mask to notch 9.2. He then stuck the mask onto a plastic model of a head.
"And, now, the odor!" The Doctor took off his suit jacket and pressed the area that the alien had brushed against the nozzle of the analyzer. With the flick of a yellow switch, that particular patch of shirt was sucked into the nozzle like a rug in a vacuum hose. "This will take a few minutes. Has to sort out the new particles from the old. You'd think it would have figured it out my scent from others before, but it has to go through the whole process every time. Ah well." He flopped down on his swivel chair, propping his feet up onto the console. "So, any further questions?"
"That's... so weird but amazing, too. Seems more like some kind of tricoder with a nose," Leanne said, raising an eyebrow at the scent analyzer. "Is this a ship like the USS Enterprise or is it more like the Millennium Falcon? I mean, you definitely seem more like a Han Solo than a Picard." She was well beyond the point of geeking out about all this. Not like she cared.
The Doctor returned the eyebrow raise. "Ahh, no. The TARDIS is much more than that. I mean, you don't see any other ship flying around looking like a blue police box, do you?" He spun himself around in his chair.
She shook her head. "I guess not." She laughed. "Why does it look that way, anyways? If it's some kind of weirdo cloaking device it's not doing a very good job of blending in."
"Well, she did stick in. Lots of police boxes back in '64. Her chameleon circuit just got a bit… ah …frayed. Anywho, I like her this way, and it's not like people ever notice her. A blue box sitting out on the street is too out of the ordinary that it automatically gets blocked." He looked as his watch. "Three minutes."
Leanne blinked at that "Three minutes? Three minutes to what? Doomsday? Tea time? What?"
"Till the analyzer is ready," he replied.
"Oh. Right." She took in the surroundings for a moment, still in her geek out mode. "TARDIS... Time and Relative Dimensions in Space, you said." She pondered on that for a second. "Time...?" Something then clicked in her head. "Does this thing Travel in time, too?" A bright look shot on her face.
"Yep, she does! Backwards, forwards, sideways. Anywhere and anywhen! When she is working, that is." A frown flashed across his face for a second then he was up and smiling in front of the analyzer. Papers were printing out, and his grinned broadened as he analyzed them.
"Ah..." Leanne said in a dreamy swoon. "Leaping from life to life, setting things right that once went wrong and hoping that the next leap... would be the leap home!" Then she ended, bouncing onto one foot as she quoted her sci-fi. She didn't care if anybody got the reference.
The Doctor did not get the reference and was immersed into his papers, so he only mumbled, "Yeah, something like that... I got it!" He did a happy jig. "Copperkeleniatium, planet Kelenia! Not very imaginative, naming the planet after the scientists..."
He threw his suit jacket back on "I hate it when they do that. Especially since the real name becomes long lost." He began rummaging around in a cupboard, shoving odd items out of the way until he found a vial in the back corner. He blew the dust off, and shoved it into his inner pocket. He turned to Leanne, still grinning, and cocked his head towards the TARDIS door. "Allons-y!"